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Farida of Egypt

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Farida (born Safinaz Zulficar Arabic: صافيناز ذو الفقار 5 September 1921 – 16 October 1988) was the Queen of Egypt for nearly eleven years as the first wife of King Farouk. She was the first queen of Egypt since Cleopatra to have left seclusion and played a public representational role, attending public functions and acting as honorary protector of charities, in accordance with the modern image the monarchy wished to represent at the time. The marriage was dissolved by divorce in 1948.

Farida
فريدة
Queen consort of Egypt
Tenure20 January 1938 – 17 November 1948
Born(1921-09-05)5 September 1921
Alexandria, Egypt
Died16 October 1988(1988-10-16) (aged 67)
Maadi, Cairo, Egypt
BurialAl-Rifa'i Mosque, Cairo, Egypt
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1938; div. 1948)​
IssuePrincess Ferial
Princess Fawzia
Princess Fadia
Names
Safinaz Zulficar (birth name)
Arabic: صافيناز ذوالفقار
HouseAlawiyya
(by marriage)
FatherYoussef Zulficar Pasha
MotherZeinab Zulficar
ReligionSunni Islam
OccupationPainter

Early life and education

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Queen Farida was born Safinaz Zulficar on 5 September 1921[1] to an Egyptian noble family in Janaklis, Alexandria. Her father, Youssef Zulficar Pasha, was a judge of Circassian origin;[2][3] he was also vice president of the Alexandria Mixed Court of Appeals.[4] Her mother, Zeinab Zulficar, was a lady-in-waiting of Queen Nazli Sabri. On her mother's side, Farida's uncle was the artist and lawyer Mahmoud Sa'id, and her grandfather was the former prime minister of Egypt Muhammad Said Pasha, who was also of Circassian origin.[5] Farida attended elementary and primary education at Notre Dame de Sion in Alexandria, a school run by French nuns.[6][7]

Marriage and issues

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Farida and King Farouk first met on a royal trip to London in 1937.[8] They were engaged in the summer of 1937.[8]

She married King Farouk on 20 January 1938 at Qubba Palace in Cairo, Egypt.[9] She was renamed Farida as her reginal name in accordance with the royal naming convention initiated by King Fuad I that members of the royal family should bear the same initials. She wore a wedding gown designed by The House of Worth in Paris.[10]

 
Princess Ferial with King Farouk and Queen Farida, c. 1940.

She had three daughters:

After the birth of a third daughter, Farouk divorced her, on 19 November 1948.[8] King Farouk cared for the first two daughters, while Farida cared for the youngest one after the divorce.[11]

Queenship and public role

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Queen Farida was born in a culture in which motherhood was the only priority of a woman. The birth of an heir to the throne was especially important. However, due to rising influence of the West, the role of the first lady and Queen rose to higher grounds.

A certain female emancipation at least in terms of visibility, had occurred in the Egyptian elite around the royal family, as it was regarded as a sign of modernity, suitable to use in the representation of the royal house to the Western world.[12] In contrast to her predecessor, Queen Farida was not to live in seclusion, but to be given a public role.

The marriage in itself was used in official publicity to show the modern image the monarchy wished to give, and the royal couple was officially described as a modern domestic couple in a monogamous companionate marriage, which at that time had come to be regarded as the ideal of the Egyptian elite.[12]

Also the rest of the women of the Royal family were freed from the seclusion of the harem of the Muhammad Ali dynasty after Farouk's succession to the throne. During the wedding of King Farouk and Queen Farida, an official state royal wedding banquet was held, which the new Queen as well as the King's mother and sisters attended in mixed company and photos published in the press, and two days after the wedding, the King introduced the new Queen to the public by appearing with her on the royal balcony, something no queen had been allowed before.[13]

The position of first lady and Queen became an honorary position bearing with it public representational duties, such as attending charities, fundraisers, commemorations and receiving foreign dignitaries.

Queen Farida accepted the chair of the Red Crescent Society and was also honorary president of the Egyptian Feminist Union and the New Woman Alliance. She was also patron of the Egyptian Girl Guide Company which had an important role in community affairs.

During the last years of queenship, Farida progressively retired from public life during a time when her marriage deteriorated. King Farouk reportedly had numerous mistresses, did not show his queen consideration, excluded her from receptions and at one point instead attended a party of Princess Chevikar in the company of a mistress, placing her beside the Prime Minister Nuqrashi Pasha, who took offence.[14] The absence of a male heir also contributed to the divorce.

The divorce was not popular in Egypt, since Farida was very popular, and King Farouk was publicly hissed at the Cairo Cinema because of it.[15] Doria Shafik viewed the royal divorce, and Farida's choice to leave an unhappy marriage, as a call to the Egyptian woman to find her freedom and liberate herself: "In exchange for her liberty, Farida gave up a throne, one of the supreme gestures in the history of the Egyptian woman".[14]

Later life

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Farida stayed in Egypt until 1964,[8] living in Zamalek, a suburb on an island in the Nile.[16] Later she settled in Lebanon where she saw her children after nearly ten years.[17] In March 1965, when King Farouk died in Rome, she and her three daughters visited his body at the morgue.[18] Then, she lived in Paris from 1968 to 1974 until she returned to Egypt in 1974, during the presidency of Anwar Sadat. She remained unmarried after the divorce.[19] During the late 1960s, she began painting.[17] An artist, she had personal exhibitions in Europe and the United States. One of her exhibitions was in Cairo in May 1980.[17]

Death

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Farida was hospitalized in September 1988 due to several health problems, including leukemia, pneumonia and hepatitis.[20] On 2 October, she was put in intensive care and then, she lapsed into a coma. She died of leukemia on 16 October 1988, aged 67, in Cairo.[20]

Honours

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National honours

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Foreign honours

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Consorts of Monogamous Egyptian Heads of State". Egy. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  2. ^ "British documents on foreign affairs: reports and papers from the Foreign Office confidential print. From 1945 through 1950. Africa, 1947. Africa, January 1947-December 1947, Part 4, Volume 3". University Publications of America. 2001. p. 187. Yousef Zulficar Pasha Father-in-law of His Majesty King Farouk I. Born the 6th June, 1886. He belongs to one of those Turkish families whose ancestors came to Egypt with Mohammed Ali the Great, and which, since then, have constituted the nearest approach to an aristocracy in this country.
  3. ^ Hassan, Fayza (2002), Sent away: Who was King Farouk, Al-Ahram, archived from the original on 10 November 2017, retrieved 18 September 2017, Farouk was not given the time to enjoy his victory in the popularity contest. His mother had decided to increase her power over him by choosing his future wife. She selected a 15-year-old whose father was a judge of Turkish descent and whose mother was one of her own ladies-in-waiting. Safinaz (renamed Farida) was "a woman in her own image, a petite, beautiful brunette upper bourgeoise who spoke perfect French and had perfect manners and yet was not of royal blood.
  4. ^ Charles Brice, William (1981). An Historical atlas of Islam. BRILL. p. 299. ISBN 90-04-06116-9.
  5. ^ Goldschmidt, Arthur (2000). Biographical dictionary of modern Egypt. Lynne Rienner Publishers. p. 178. ISBN 1-55587-229-8.
  6. ^ Raafat, Samir (March 2005). "Egypt's first ladies" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 September 2013. Retrieved 6 June 2009.
  7. ^ Philip Mansel (2012). "The Rise and Fall of Royal Alexandria: From Mohammed Ali to Farouk". The Court Historian. 17 (2): 237. doi:10.1179/cou.2012.17.2.006. S2CID 159505002.
  8. ^ a b c d Hassan, Maher (20 January 2010). "Queen Farida, King Farouk's first wife". Egypt Independent. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  9. ^ "Queen Farida hides beauty with veil". The Pittsburgh Press. Cairo. United Press International. 21 January 1938. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  10. ^ Hargrove, Rosette (21 January 1938). "Dressed to the King's taste". The Telegraph Herald. Paris. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  11. ^ "Ex-queen Farida of Egypt". The Indian Express. Cairo. 22 November 1948. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  12. ^ a b Cuno, K.M. (2015). Modernizing Marriage: Family, Ideology, and Law in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Egypt. Gender and Globalization. Syracuse University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-8156-5316-5.
  13. ^ LIFE 14 feb 1938
  14. ^ a b Shafik Egyptian Feminist: A Woman Apart
  15. ^ Challenging Retrenchment: The United States, Great Britain and the Middle
  16. ^ "Former Queen pens message to Farouk". Reading Eagle. 20 January 1952. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  17. ^ a b c Balouny, Lisette (31 May 1980). "Queen Farida living in dignified exile". The Day. Cairo. Associated Press. p. 20. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  18. ^ "Cold, lonely end comes to Farouk". Lodi News Sentinel. Rome. United Press International. 20 March 1965. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  19. ^ "Queen Farida of Egypt Dies at 68". The New York Times. 17 October 1988. Retrieved 6 June 2009.
  20. ^ a b "Ex-Queen Farida of Egypt; First Wife of King Farouk". Los Angeles Times. 17 October 1988. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  21. ^ "Picture". Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  22. ^ "Picture". Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  23. ^ a b 40.media.tumblr.com, Farida Zulficar (right) at the Greek Royal Wedding
  24. ^ "Picture of the Wedding". Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  25. ^ "Queen Farida of Egypt in Her Wedding Dress". Getty Images. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  26. ^ "Picture of the wedding dress". Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  27. ^ "Picture of the wedding couple". Retrieved 3 December 2019.
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Egyptian royalty
Vacant
Title last held by
Nazli Sabri 		Queen consort of Egypt
1938–1948 		Vacant
Title next held by
Narriman Sadek
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