Ashraf Pahlavi died in 2016 at the age of 96. Her life remains a complex chapter in history—celebrated by some as a pioneer for women’s rights and reviled by others as an emblem of royal excess and authoritarianism. She was a woman of strong will who operated in a man’s world, leaving behind a legacy marked by influence, ambition, controversy, and contradiction. Despite the fall of the monarchy, she remained an ardent defender of the Pahlavi legacy, continuing to write and speak out against the Islamic Republic and in favor of secular governance and modernity.
