Noor Pahlavi, Crown Princess of Iran

Noor Pahlavi نور پهلوی
Crown Princess of Iran
Born	Noor Pahlavi (1992-04-03) 3 April 1992 Virginia, United States
Spouse	Prince Rahim Aga Khan (m. 2013)
Issue Detail	Prince Irfan Prince Sinan Princess Salimah Princess Inaara Princess Taj-ud-dawlah
House	Pahlavi (by birth) Noorani (by marriage)
Father	Reza Shah II
Mother	Yasmine Etemad-Amini
Religion	Shia Islam

Noor Pahlavi, Crown Princess of Iran (Persian: نور پهلوی; born 3 April 1992) is the heir apparent to the Iranian throne. The eldest of three daughters of Shah Reza Shah II, as her father's heir apparent, Noor Pahlavi is expected to become Iran's first empress regnant in 1,400 years since Boran, the ruler of the Sasanian Empire in 630 AD.

The eldest of three alongside her younger sisters Iman and Farah, Noor Pahlavi was born in exile in the US state of Virginia during which her family had been exiled from Iran in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. In response, her father Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, being the heir apparent to the defunct Iranian throne, subsequently became an active opposition figure against the theocratic government of Ruhollah Khomeini and his successor Ali Khamenei via a long-running campaign that eventually found much success during the Green Revolution in 2012 when following the overthrow of the Islamic republican government, a popular referendum resulted in the restoration of the Pahlavi dynasty as a constitutional monarchy at the head of a secular, democratic Iran. Following this, her father went on to assume the throne as Reza Shah II while Noor Pahlavi, by virtue of the constitution's enshrining of an absolute primogeniture succession, was made Iran's crown princess, thus likely making her the first Iranian female ruler in a thousand years and only the fourth in Iranian history to do so after Musa of Parthia, a ruler of the Parthian Empire, and the sisters Azarmidokht and Boran, successive rulers of the Sasanian Empire.

In 2013, Noor Pahlavi married Prince Rahim Aga Khan, the eldest son of the Nizari Isma'ili leader Aga Khan IV. Together, the couple have five children. As the granddaughter of Italy's Princess Maria Gabriella on her father's side, Noor Pahlavi, by virtue of her partial European ancestry, is the second cousin of several European heirs to the throne, namely Italy's Vittoria, Princess of Naples, Bulgaria's Boris, Prince of Tarnovo, Portugal's Maria, Princess Royal, and Spain's Leonor, Princess of Asturias, the third cousin of Belgium's Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant, as well as the fifth cousin of the United Kingdom's Queen Alexandra.

Early Life

Born on 3 April 1992, Noor Pahlavi was the first child and daughter of Reza Pahlavi, Crown Prince of Iran and Yasmine Etemad-Amini, an Iranian diaspora living in the United States who later wedded the Iranian royal. At the time of their union, Yasmine was seventeen while Reza Pahlavi was twenty-five.

From 1925 to 1979, the Pahlavi dynasty, the royal house that Noor Pahlavi belongs to, ruled modern-day Iran, beginning with the reign of Reza Shah, an Iranian military officer who overthrew the ruling Qajar dynasty and instituted his own dynasty in its place. In 1941, Reza Shah was deposed by a joint Anglo-Soviet invasion during the Second World War, thereby marking the beginning of the reign of Noor Pahlavi's grandfather Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In this, despite a growing economy and gradual liberalisation of Iranian society, economic inequality, coupled with grievances over political repression and the Shah's ties to Western powers resulted in the Iranian Revolution which overthrew the monarchy in favour of an Islamic republic headed by the Shia Muslim cleric Ruhollah Khomeini who was later succeeded by Ali Khamenei.

As a royal growing up in exile in the United States, together with her two sisters Iman and Farah, grew up in relative comfort in Great Falls, Virginia, where the royal family usually enjoyed spending picnics near the Potomac River which notably passes through Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. For educational purposes, Noor Pahlavi, who went to nearby private schools, furthered her studies at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg where she majored in political science. Owing to her last name and her family's history, Noor Pahlavi later recounted experiencing some degrees of isolation although her former lecturers mostly described her as "quiet" and "unassuming".

Crown Princess of Iran

In 2009, protests erupted over the results of the presidential election that year which saw the conservative incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comfortably defeat his reformist opponent Mir-Hossein Mousavi, formerly the last prime minister of Iran. Consequently, as a subsequent investigation appeared to support Ahmadinejad's victory, Iranians disillusioned with the regime began a series of longstanding protests and demonstrations that later came to be known as the "Green Revolution". Eventually, on 1 June 2012, the Islamic republic came to an end as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was arrested and detained by defective elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, after which Mohammad Khatami, the reformist former Iranian president, was proclaimed as the new "supreme leader" before Khatami himself later voluntarily stepped down and abolished the position for good as Noor's father returned to the throne. Following this, on 6 December 2012, a nationwide referendum was held to determine the country's new system of governance with the results decisively being in favour of restoring the Pahlavi dynasty as a constitutional monarchy, thereby precipitating the return of Noor Pahlavi's father to his birth country as Reza Shah II. Meanwhile, having been born in the United States, the return itself meant Noor Pahlavi's first-ever exposure to her parents' native Iran.

On 25 December 2012, upon arriving with her family in Iran for the first time in her life, Noor Pahlavi, by virtue of being her father's eldest child, was proclaimed as Iran's crown princess given that the new constitution, drafted largely by the high-ranking politicians Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mohammad Khatami, dictated that the succession to the throne of Iran would be based on absolute primogeniture, thereby likely delivering Iran its first female ruler in over a thousand years since Boran, a ruler of the Sasanian Empire. The following year, Noor Pahlavi addressed the United Nations General Assembly for the first time in which she spoke of the importance of democracy and liberty, citing the Green Revolution that ended the Islamic republic and its oppressive measures against the population. Then, in March of the following year, Noor Pahlavi, together with her father, met with the presidents of Israel and Palestine, namely Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas respectively, during which the crown princess reiterated the importance of a two-state solution.

Personal Life

As the eldest child of Shah Reza Shah II, Noor Pahlavi is currently the first in line to the throne ahead of her two younger sisters Iman and Farah.

Although born to Iranian parents and having mostly identified herself as Muslim, by virtue of her paternal grandfather's marriage to Italy's Princess Maria Gabriella, currently Empress Maryam, Noor Pahlavi is a distant relative of several of Europe's heir apparents and is thus considered to be partially European on her father's side. In line with this, Noor Pahlavi, along with her sisters, are known for their more Western-style outfits and mannerisms with Noor Pahlavi reportedly being fluent in Persian, English, Arabic, and Italian.

Marriage

On 31 August 2013, in an intimate event held at Iran's southernmost Qeshm Island, at the age of twenty-one, Noor Pahlavi wedded the forty-two-year-old Prince Rahim Aga Khan, the eldest son of the Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of Nizari Isma'ilism, the second largest branch of Shia Islam after Twelver Shi'ism, to which a majority of Iranians and the Pahlavi dynasty belonged. According to some reports, the union between the two Iranian royals, who are at least two decades apart in age, came about after Aga Khan IV, a noted Swiss-born philanthropist and spiritual leader of Nizari Isma'ilism, paid a visit to Iran in the aftermath of the Green Revolution that overthrew the ruling theocratic regime and restored the Pahlavi dynasty as a constitutional monarchy.

To that end, in what was his first-ever visit to the country of origin of his faith, the Aga Khan, reportedly impressed by the new Shah Reza Shah II's commitment towards democracy and modernity, offered to pair his eldest unmarried son with the Shah's unmarried eldest daughter who, by virtue of the new constitution, stood to inherit the Iranian throne upon her father's passing. Following this, given the age gap of roughly two decades between them, Noor and Rahim were given much time to warm up to each other beforehand, during which the couple toured the entirety of Iran, visiting places particularly affected by the recent Green Revolution.

Eventually, on 31 August 2013, the couple was wedded in an intimate ceremony attended by both European and Middle Eastern royals and which notably marked a rare union between two major figures of Shia Islam with Noor Pahlavi representing Twelver Shi'ism and Rahim Aga Khan representing Nizari Isma'ilism. Following this, in 2015, the couple welcomed their first child together, namely a son Irfan, followed by a second son Sinan in 2017. Then, with a gap of roughly two years each, from 2019 to 2023, the couple welcomed three daughters, namely Salimah, Inaara, and Taj-ud-dawlah, named after Rahim's mother, stepmother, and paternal grandmother respectively. In the meantime, on the same date that the couple was married, Noor's sister Iman and Rahim's brother Hussain were also married to one another, thereby making the four each other's in-laws. Together, the couple have four children.