- published: 19 Aug 2011
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Shapour Bakhtiar ( Listen ) (also Shapur Bakhtiar, Luri/Persian:شاپور بختیار and Chapour Bakhtiar French: Chapour Bakhtiar) (Shāpoūr Bakhtīār) (26 June 1914 – 6 August 1991) was an Iranian political scientist, writer and the last Prime Minister of Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. On 6 August 1991 Bakhtiar, and his secretary, were murdered in his home in Suresnes, Paris, France.
Bakhtiar was born on 26 June 1914 in southwestern Iran into a family of Iranian tribal nobility: the family of the paramount chieftains of the then powerful Bakthiari tribe. His father was Mohammad Reza Khan (Sardar-e-Fateh), his mother Naz-Baygom, both Lori and Bakhtiaris. Bakhtiar's maternal grandfather, Najaf-Gholi Khan Samsam ol-Saltaneh (a.k.a. Saad ad-Daula), was appointed prime minister twice, in 1912 and 1918. Bakhtiar's mother died when he was seven years old. His father was executed by Reza Shah in 1934 while Shapour was studying in Paris.
He attended elementary school in Shahr-e Kord and then secondary school, first in Isfahan and later in Beirut, Lebanon, where he received his high school diploma from a French school. He attended Beirut University for two years. However, then his cousin, Teymour Bakhtiar, and he went to Paris for university education. There he attended the College of Political Science.