Aryamehr


Aryamehr was a title used in the Pahlavi era by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran. It means Light of the Aryans in the Persian language.

History

Aryamehr was granted as a secondary title by a session of the joint Houses of Parliament on 15 September 1965 to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, before his coronation at Tehran, 26 October 1967. The Pahlavis used it as an idealization of pre-Islamic Iran and foundation for anti-clerical monarchism, while the clerics used it to exalt "Iranian values" vis-à-vis Westernization. Demonstrating affinity with Orientalist views of the alleged "supremacy" of the Aryan peoples and the "mediocrity" of the Semitic peoples, Iranian nationalist discourse idealized pre-Islamic Achaemenid and Sasanian empires, whilst negating the Islamization of Iran during the Caliphate. Compared to the titles used by the Qajar dynasty, such as "Pivot of the Universe" and "Shadow of God", the Shah's title "Aryamehr" was less pompous in scope, despite critics ridiculing it as "grandiose and bombastic".
In 1965, the Shah ordered Mohammad Ali Mojtahedi to establish Aryamehr University of Technology. However, after the 1979 Iranian Revolution It was renamed and currently known as the Sharif University named after Majid Sharif-Vaghefi.
Things named after Aryamehr were Āryāmehr Sports Complex including the Aryamehr Stadium, and the Šahyād Āryāmehr monumental gate.

Associated order

In 1873, Naser al-Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty established the Order of Aftab restricted to female sovereigns or consorts and princess ladies or women of high rank. In 1939, the order was renamed Nishan-e Khorshid. This was then transformed into Neshān-e Āryāmehr, Nešâne Āryāmehr or Nishān-i Āryāmehr, meaning 'the Order of Light of the Aryans'. It was the third and last Imperial order of knighthood founded by the Shah on 26 September 1967 in honour of his consort, Empress Farah Diba, and restricted to ladies only. The first class was restricted to female Sovereigns or consorts of reigning rulers, the second class to princesses.