Mohammad Reza Shah left Iran while the Islamic Revolution, led by elderly exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was gaining momentum and the country was practically in chaos. A year and a half later, the shah, aged 60, died from complications of leukemia at a Cairo hospital. The late shah was laid to rest at Cairo’s Al Rifa’i Mosque, where the last king of Egypt, Farouk, and other prominent figures of modern Egypt are buried.
