The marriage of Princess Fawzia to Iran's Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was planned by the latter's father, Rezā Shāh.[9][10] A declassified CIA report in May 1972 described the union as a political move.[11] The marriage was also significant in that it united a Sunni royal, the Princess, and a Shia royal, the Crown Prince.[12] The Pahlavis were a parvenu house as Reza Khan, the son of a peasant who entered the Iranian Army as a private, rising up to become a general, had seized power in a 1921 coup, and he was most anxious have the House of Pahlavi married to the House of Ali, who had reigned over Egypt since 1805.[13]