Shahnaz Pahlavi


Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi is the first child of the former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his first wife, Fawzia of Egypt.

Early life and education

Shahnaz Pahlavi was born in Tehran on 27 October 1940, a year before the accession of her father to the throne. She is the only child of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his first wife Queen Fawzia. Shahnaz is the paternal half-sister of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, Princess Farahnaz Pahlavi, Prince Ali Reza Pahlavi and Princess Leila Pahlavi – the four children of the Shah by his third wife, Farah Pahlavi. Her maternal grandparents were King Fuad I and Queen Nazli of Egypt; and her paternal grandparents were Reza Shah and Queen Tadj ol-Molouk of Iran. She is also the niece of King Farouk I of Egypt and thus a cousin of the last Egyptian king, Fuad II.
Shahnaz Pahlavi was educated in a Belgian boarding school, the Lycée Léonie de Waha, in Liège and then in Switzerland.

Personal life

Her father had plans for Shahnaz's marriage with King Faisal II of Iraq which did not materialise due to her unwillingness. Her first marriage, at age sixteen, was to Ardeshir Zahedi on 11 October 1957, at Golestan Palace, Tehran. He was one-time Iranian foreign minister and twice Iranian ambassador to the United States. She and Zahedi first met in Germany in 1955. The couple have one daughter. They divorced in 1964.
Shahnaz later married Khosrow Jahanbani in February 1971 at the Iranian embassy in Paris. Their marriage lasted until Jahanbani's death on 13 April 2014.
During her father's reign, Shahnaz had investments in agricultural enterprises and assembly plants of Honda bicycles and motorcycles in Iran.

Later years

Since the Iranian Revolution, Shahnaz Pahlavi has lived in Switzerland. She has Swiss citizenship. In December 2013, she was granted Egyptian citizenship by the Egyptian government.

Honours