Fawzia Shirin (
Arabic: فوزية بنت فؤاد الأول,
Persian: فوزیه فؤاد) (born 5 November 1921,
Alexandria,
Egypt) was the Egyptian princess and Queen of Iran as spouse of
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
She is currently
Fawzia Shirin, having remarried in 1949 and having lost her royal titles after the
Egyptian Revolution of 1952, although she is referred to as princess out of courtesy. She is the most senior member of the deposed
Muhammad Ali Dynasty residing in Egypt. Her nephew, Fuad, who was proclaimed
King Fuad II of Egypt and Sudan after the Revolution, resides in
Switzerland.
Early life
She was born Her Sultanic Highness Princess
Fawzia bint Fuad at
Ras el-Tin Palace in
Alexandria, the eldest daughter of
Sultan Fuad I of Egypt and Sudan (later
King Fuad I), and his second wife,
Nazli Sabri.She is of Albanian descent. One of her great-great-grandfathers was
Suleiman Pasha, a French army officer who served under
Napoleon, converted to
Islam, and oversaw an overhaul of the Egyptian army. In addition to her sisters, Faiza, Faika, and Fathiya, and her brother,
Farouk, she had two half-siblings from her father's previous marriage to Princess
Shivakiar Khanum Effendi.
Marriage
Photograph of the wedding ceremony of Princess Fawzia, King Farouk's sister, to the Crown Prince of Iran, in 1939, at the Abdine Palace in Cairo. King Farouk is standing to the right of his sister, and to her left is the future Shah
Princess Fawzia of Egypt and Sudan married
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919-1980), the Crown Prince of
Iran, in
Cairo, on 16 March 1939; after their honeymoon, the wedding ceremonies were repeated in
Tehran. Two years later, the crown prince succeeded his exiled father and was to become the
Shah of Iran. Soon after her husband’s ascent to the throne, Queen Fawzia appeared on the cover of the 21 September 1942, of
Life magazine, photographed by
Cecil Beaton, who described her as an “Asian Venus” with “a perfect heart-shaped face and strangely pale but piercing blue eyes.”
The marriage was not a success. After the birth of the couple’s only child, Princess
Shahnaz Pahlavi, Queen Fawzia—the title of empress was not yet used in Iran at that time—obtained an Egyptian divorce in 1945, whereupon she moved to Cairo. This divorce was not recognized by
Iran, however, and eventually an official divorce was obtained, in Iran, on 17 November 1948, with Queen Fawzia reclaiming her previous distinction of Princess of Egypt and Sudan. A major condition of the divorce was that her daughter be left behind to be raised in Iran. Curiously, Queen Fawzia’s brother, King Farouk, divorced his first wife, Queen Farida, the same week.
In the official announcement of the divorce, it was stated that “the Persian climate had endangered the health of Empress [sic] Fawzia, and that thus it was agreed that the Egyptian King’s sister be divorced.” In another official statement, the Shah said that the dissolution of the marriage “cannot affect by any means the existing friendly relations between Egypt and Iran.”
Marriage to Colonel Ismail Hussain Shirin Bey
On 28 March 1949, in Cairo, Princess Fawzia married Colonel
Ismail Hussain Shirin Bey, (1919-1994), a distant cousin and one-time Egyptian Minister of War and the Navy. The couple had two children: Nadia (born 1950) and Hussain (born 1955).
Other
Princess Fawzia’s death was mistakenly reported in January 2005. Journalists had confused her with her niece, Princess
Fawzia Farouk of Egypt (Fawzia) (1940-2005), one of the three daughters of King
Farouk.
