Coll 28/89 ‘Persia. Reports regarding the education, etc., of the Crown Prince and proceedings of the Royal Family.’ [‎43r] (85/149)

THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
PERSIA .
CONFIDENTIAL.
[E 3646/3141/34]
June 20 , 1938.
Section 3.
Copy No.
r
L
Mr. Nevile Butler to Viscount Halifax.—{Received June 20)
(No. 210.)
My Lord, Tehran, June 3, 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 demonstrations 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.
1 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. Mahometan
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 histoiical interest. It shows Royalty, both in Iran and Egypt, emer^in 0,
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 shown 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 govern
ment and the stability of the dynasty, namely, the ruler’s habit of regarding his
natural heir as his natural enemy, and so immuring 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.
r n ^ P°^ nt view, the Shah has probably taken a wise step in
t olio wing the European example of looking to another Royal familv 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 to-day provides that the heir to
a of .f ranian 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 cataclysmic 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
Koyal ramily by another wife, or a usurper from outside, will have to take
into account an international complication. Thus the proposed marriage should
strengthen the dynasty in more ways than one.
T 3 ii^'- ^ n S a o err J® nt ^y also be regarded as bringing recognition that the
Pahlavi 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
Vle A °Li e aristocratic, hereditary and divine-right nature of monarchy. This
is doubtless one of the reasons why he is so sensitive to anv mention of his
[339 u—3]