Amir Asadollah Alam

1919 - 1978

Iranian politician of the Pahlavi period.

Amir Asadollah Alam was the son of Showkat alMolk Alam, who was governor of Birjand under Mozaffar al-Din Shah of the Qajars and also a member of Reza Shah Pahlavi's inner court. He was born in Birjand into a family that originally came from an Arab tribe of the southern region of Khuzistan. Patronized by Reza Shah from the start, Alam married Malektaj Qavam, the sister-in-law of Ashraf Pahlavi, the shah's daughter. His long-standing friendship with the crown prince was fostered in this period. Alam was one of the few members of Iran's traditional aristocracy who not only manifested his loyalty to the Pahlavi dynasty from the very start, but repeatedly did so in the course of an unusually long political career during which he held several gubernatorial and ministerial positions. A confidant of the new shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, he was ordered to found the Mardom (People's) Party, which was envisioned as the party of loyal opposition. In 1962, Alam was appointed prime minister, to facilitate the implementation of the White Revolution, launched in 1963 by the shah. He was also prime minister at the time of the uprisings engineered by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Qom (1963), in protest against the White Revolution. In 1964, he was appointed president of the Pahlavi University in Shiraz, and under his leadership it became Iran's model university. In 1966, he was appointed minister of court, and in this capacity he allegedly was one of the strongest influences on the shah. He retained this position until 1977, when he was forced to resign because of illness. He died in 1978 of leukemia.

Bibliography

Alam, Amir Assadollah. The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1969 - 1977, edited by Alinaghi Alikhani. New York: St. Martin's, 1991.

— NEGUIN YAVARI