THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Princess Fawzia Fuad of Egypt: Princess Fawzia Fuad of Egypt, who has died in Alexandria aged 91, was the first wife of the late Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi; the marriage was a dynastic arrangement, not a love match. ¶ As a daughter of King Fuad of Egypt and the youngest sister of King Farouk, Fawzia had the royal blood that the ruler Reza Shah sought for his son; a match with an old royal family would add lustre to Iran’s shallow-rooted monarchy. Fawzia endured the arrangement for six years before bolting home to Egypt, never returning to Iran. ¶ Princess Fawzia bint Fuad was born on November 5 1921 at Ras al-Tin Palace in Alexandria, the youngest daughter of King Fuad and his second wife, Nazli Sabri, and grew up in royal palaces and gardens, shielded from the outside world by an English governess. ¶ A shy, pretty girl with blue eyes and black hair, she was described by the Egyptian writer and courtier Adel Sabit as a “supremely naive, over-protected, cellophane-wrapped, gift-packaged little girl” who lived “in bucolic surroundings, mobbed by adoring servants, aunts and ladies-in-waiting”. » | Friday, July 05, 2013
