Mohammad Reza Shah was a deeply religious man who is known as the spiritual father of the mullahs.

 

#Mohammad_Reza_Shah was a #deeply_religious man who is known as the spiritual father of the mullahs.

This is the Shah's last trip to Mashhad with Farah. June 1978. The Shah had traveled to Mashhad a year earlier. In May 1977. The last trip was also a pilgrimage. Meeting with a group of clerics and talking to them. The Shah had said in this meeting:

"My interest in religion and sect, in addition to the personal aspect that has arisen since childhood, also has a private aspect, and many people are aware of this issue, and the belief that from a state perspective, it is necessary to promote the principles of the religion of Islam and the necessity of having religion in a society that is threatened today by materialism [a sarcasm towards communist groups] is very clear. What we can do, of course, is to honor religious rituals, as well as to build, repair, and create new religious facilities, examples of which you can see here [referring to the expansion of the Imam Reza shrine that occurred during the time of the saints] and in other parts of the country...

Abbas Milani, years later, at the unveiling ceremony of his book - A Look at the Shah - calling that trip fruitless, says:

"If I'm right, the roots of the Islamic Revolution were laid by the Shah. The Shah thought that the main danger was primarily the communists and secondarily the nationalists. The Shah thought that the clergy were a coalition, he understood that among the clergy there were people like the Safavid Nawab and Ayatollah Khomeini, but he thought that the body of the clergy was monarchist. He was afraid that what happened in the Soviet Union would be repeated in Iran. The Shah eliminated all the intermediate, democratic, and social-democratic forces. Only one force was allowed to operate in Iran, the religious ones. He thought Islam was an antidote to communists, unaware that there were those in Islam who wanted a caliphate. The Shah was not alone, of course. America made the same mistake. America made the same mistake in Afghanistan even after the fall of the Shah.”

For some reason, the Shah was unaware of the political movements that had begun under the skin of society. The country was ready for widespread movements in the days he was in Mashhad. That is why he dismissed the government of Amouzgar and brought in the government of Sharif Emami a short while later. A series of transfers that ultimately led him to leave the country.

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P.N.: Hoveida accompanied the Shah on this trip as a minister of the court. Asadullah Alam had replaced Hoveida since the summer of the previous year due to the worsening of his illness - cancer.