Turan Amirsoleimani (Persian: توران امیرسلیمانی, born Qamar ol-Molouk Amirsoleimani, (قمرالملوک امیرسلیمانی); 4 February 1905 – 24 July 1994) was an Iranian royal and the third wife of Reza Shah, with whom she had a son named Gholam Reza Pahlavi.[2]

Turan Amirsoleimani
BornQamar ol-Molouk Amirsoleimani
(1905-02-04)4 February 1905
Tehran, Sublime State of Persia
Died24 July 1994(1994-07-24) (aged 89)
Paris, France
Burial
Spouse
(m. 1922; div. 1923)

Zabihollah Malekpour
(m. 1945)
IssuePrince Gholam Reza
FatherIsa Khan Majd es-Saltaneh
MotherShams ol-Molouk Monazzah od-Dowleh[1]

Biography

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Turan was born Qamar ol-Molouk Amirsoleimani in 1905. Her father, Isa Khan Majd es-Saltaneh, was a son of Majd ed-Dowleh (a first cousin of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar).

She continued her education until earning her diploma from Namous High School in Tehran. In 1922, she married Reza Khan, who was the minister of war at the time. The following year she gave birth to her only son, Gholam Reza Pahlavi.[3] The couple divorced shortly afterwards.[3] The reason for it was that Reza Khan considered her to have an arrogant personality.[4]

After divorce, Amirsoleimani refrained from remarrying and lived with her son Gholam Reza in one of the royal residences. In 1945, a year after Reza Shah's death, she married Zabihollah Malekpour, a renowned merchant. Tadj ol-Molouk, Reza Shah's widow and the Queen Mother, used this marriage as an excuse to force Amirsoleimani out of the residence given to her by her former husband.[1]

Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Amirsoleimani left Iran and moved to Germany before being moved to a retirement home in Paris in her later years. She died there on 24 July 1995 and was buried at the cimetière parisien de Thiais. Her son was buried next to her after his death in 2017.

Amirsoleimani's house in Iran was located on the southwest side of the intersection of Pesyan and Ismaili in the Zafaraniyeh neighbourhood of Tehran. This property was partially destroyed by the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation on 19 July 2016 before being sold to a private owner and demolished completely.[5]

References

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  1. ^ a b Jalal Andarmanizadeh; Mokhtar Hadid (1999). Pahlavis (Pahlavi dynasty according to documents). Vol. 2. Tehran: Institute for Iranian Contemporary Historical Studies. p. 6.
  2. ^ Niloufar Kasra. "The Lonely Queen at Reza Shah's Court". Institute for Iranian Contemporary Historical Studies (in Persian). Retrieved 19 April 2021.
  3. ^ a b James Buchan (2013-10-15). Days of God: The Revolution in Iran and Its Consequences. Simon and Schuster. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-4165-9777-3.
  4. ^ Janet Afary (2009). Sexual Politics in Modern Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 194. ISBN 978-1-107-39435-3.
  5. ^ "آلبوم عکس:خانه ملکه توران همسر سوم رضا شاه در تهران 'تخریب' شد" ["Photo Album: The house of Queen Turan, Reza Shah's third wife, was 'destroyed' in Tehran]. BBC Persian (in Persian). 19 July 2016. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
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