Amanullah Jahanbani

Amanollah Jahanbani (Persian: امان ‌الله جهانبانى; 1891 – 1 February 1974) was a member of the Qajar dynasty of Iran and a senior general of Reza Shah Pahlavi.

Early life and education

Born in 1895, Jahanbani was the son of general Amanullah Mirza Jahanbani and via him the great-grandson of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar.^[1] At the age of 10, he was sent to St. Petersburg for schooling, where he attended the Mihailovsky Artillery College and the Nikolaevsky War Academy.^{[citation needed]} He returned to Iran as a ranked military officer in World War I.

Career

After completing his studies in Europe, Jahanbani joined the Cossack forces and became a major general.^[2] On 6 December 1921 Jahanbani was named the commander of gendarmerie headquarters following the dissolution of the Cossack Division by Reza Shah.^[2] He was appointed the chief of the staff with the rank of brigadier general at the beginning of the 1920s.^[3] As of 1925 he was the head of military academy.^[4] In 1928, he led the army in Balochistan attack to control the resistance.^[5] His path of success continued until 1938, when he fell out of favor and was thrown into the Qasr prison by Reza Shah.^[6] However, in 1941 he was named interior minister.^[7]

When Reza Shah was forced to abdicate during World War II, he was appointed to the Senate during the era of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi where he served for five consecutive periods.^[8]

Personal life and death

Jahanbani married twice. He had a total of nine children, four children with his second wife, Helen Kasminsky: Nader, Parviz, Khosrow, and Mehr Monir. Nader Jahanbani became the deputy head of the Imperial Iranian Air Force, Parviz was an officer in the Imperial Iranian Marines, and Khosrow was the second husband of Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi. Amanullah Jahanbani is the father-in-law of Captain Nasrollah Amanpour, and the uncle of CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour.^[9]

Jahanbani died in 1974, at the age of 83.

He wrote an autobiography titled "Iranian Soldier: Meaning of Water and Soil," which was published in 2001 with the help of his son, Parviz Jahanbani.^[10]

References

1. ^ "Centers of Power in Iran". CIA. May 1972. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
2. ^ Ahmed S. Hashim (Summer 2012). "The Iranian Armed Forces in Politics, Revolution and War: Part One". Middle East Policy. XIX (2): 112. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4967.2012.00538.x
3. ^ Stephanie Cronin (2006). Tribal Politics in Iran: Rural Conflict and the New State, 1921-1941. Routledge. p. 62. ISBN 978-1-134-13801-2.
4. ^ Hooshmand Mirfakhraei (1984). The Imperial Iranian Armed Forces and the Revolution of 1978-1979 (PhD). p. 62.
5. ^ Naseer Dashti (2012). The Baloch and Balochistan: A Historical Account from the Beginning to the Fall of the Baloch State. Trafford Publishing. p. 280. ISBN 978-1-4669-5897-5.
6. ^ Ervand Abrahamian (1999). Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran. University of California Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-520-92290-7.
7. ^ Mohammad Gholi Majd (2012). August 1941: The Anglo-Russian Occupation of Iran and Change of Shahs. University Press of America. p. 360. ISBN 978-0-7618-5940-6.
8. ^ James A. Bill (1988). The Eagle and the Lion. The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. p. 99. doi:10.2307/1963329. ISBN 978-0-300-04412-6. JSTOR 1963329. S2CID 142331831
9. ^ News Archived 21 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine Fars News
10. ^ ""Iranian Soldier: Meaning of Water and ground""

Other sources

• 'Alí Rizā Awsatí (عليرضا اوسطى), Iran in the Past Three Centuries (Irān dar Se Qarn-e Goz̲ashteh - ايران در سه قرن گذشته), Volumes 1 and 2 (Paktāb Publishing - انتشارات پاکتاب, Tehran, Iran, 2003). ISBN 964-93406-6-1 (Vol. 1), ISBN 964-93406-5-3 (Vol. 2).