Coll 28/39(2) ‘Persia. Printed Correspondence, 1937–’ [‎93r] (185/320)

69
(55)
Copies : Cairo No. 1.
India No. 1C4.
Letter from His Majesty’s Minister, Tehran, to the Foreign Office,
London, No. 210 (505/12/38), dated the 3rd June 1938.
With reference to my telegram No. 60 of the 27th May, I have the honour
to report that the Iranian Government have spared no pains to emphasise
the importance of the engagement of the Valiahd to Her Royal Highness
Princess Fowzieh of Egypt. The press has reported at length the demonstra
tions of enthusiasm with which the engagement has been greeted in Tehran
and the provinces. The capital has been beflagged and illuminated, and
every cab, taxi and motor-bus has been bedecked with flags, first Iranian
only, and then Egyptian also, with white crescent and stars hastily stitched
on to the green ground. When every allowance is made for the power of
official compulsion behind these demonstrations there is reason to think that
the Iranian people are genuinely pleased and flattered by this alliance with
the ruling family of a leading Oriental state.
2. It can fairly be said that the engagement is an event of importance.
I have had no recourse to books of reference, but I cannot call to mind, at
any rate in at all recent times, any instance of a dynastic marriage between
the ruling houses of independent sovereign states professing Islam. Moham
medan queens, whatever their influence within the palace, have hitherto
been of little public account. The general custom of Persian kings has been
to draw upon their own countrywomen, not necessarily of illustrious birth,
to fill their harems and raise their issue. The Valiahd’s engagement is
therefore also an event of some historical interest. It shows royalty, both
in Iran and Egypt, emerging into a stage reached long ago in Christendom,
but only now in Islam.
3. This development may have a more practical significance. Islamic
history has shewn the disintegrating effect of polygamy. Its effects have
left their marks upon the whole fabric of society in Islamic countries, but
in no way more conspicuously than in the internecine struggles for succession
between sons of the same father, but different mothers, that have been the
cause of so many palace revolutions, and the rock on which so many a dynasty
has foundered. It seems possible that to the same set of causes should be
attributed another phenomenon of oriental kingdoms, equally disastrous
to the practice of government and the stability of the dynasty, namely the
ruler’s habit of regarding his natural heir as his natural enemy, and so im-
muning him in the harem and giving him no chance of learning the art of
ruling, or of forming political contacts in his father’s lifetime.
4. From this point of view, the Shah has probably taken a wise step in
following the European example of looking to another royal family for his
heir’s bride. He has escaped from the atmosphere of the oriental harem.
It is true that the Iranian constitution as it reads today provides that the
heir to the Throne must be of Iranian parentage on both sides. There can
be little doubt that the Shah will arrange the necessary modification
so that, provided his son’s succession is secured and unless something catac
lysmic happens in the meanwhile, when his son dies, there will be no question
as to who is the queen-mother and who is the heir. ^ On this assumption,
anyone who tries to upset the accession of the present Valiahd’s heir, whether
another member of the royal family by another wife, or a usurper from out
side will have to take into account an international complication. Thus
the proposed marriage should strengthen the dynasty in more ways than
one.
5. The engagement may also be regarded as bringing recognition that
the Pahlevi family has “ arrived ”. It was suggested in the Annual Report
from this post for 1937 that Reza Shah pays much attention to the age-old
Persian view of the aristocratic, hereditary and divine right nature of
monarchy. 1 This is doubtless one of the reasons why he is so sensitive to
17 (S) ead