Ramin mostaghim biography of albert

TEHRAN, Iran – The latest threat to Iran’s theocracy – already struggling to contain public anger over unemployment, economic mismanagement, bank failures, social restrictions and environmental damage – seems to have risen from the dead.

Construction workers renovating a Shiite Muslim shrine near the former tomb of Reza Shah Pahlavi in Tehran this week stumbled upon a mummified corpse, fueling speculation that it could be the missing remains of the king who died in 1944.

The tomb was demolished soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution as Iran’s new clerical rulers sought to erase all traces of a secular monarchy that by then was widely seen as corrupt, despotic and dissolute.

The body was never found in the ruins, and over the years, the theocracy has quashed any appreciation of the royal period.

But the passage of four decades, and deepening frustration with the clerics, has revived the reputation of