The first wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran.
Fawzia Fuad of Egypt (5 November 1921 – 2 July 2013) also known as Muluk Fawzia of Iran and Fawzia Chirine, was an Egyptian princess who became Queen of Iran as the first wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran. Fawzia was the daughter of Fuad I, seventh son of Ismail the Magnificent. Her marriage to the Iranian Crown Prince in 1939 was a political deal: It consolidated Egyptian power and influence in the Middle East, while bringing respectability to the new Iranian regime by association with the much more prestigious Egyptian royal house. It was never a love- match, and Fawzia obtained an Egyptian divorce in 1945 (not recognised in Iran until 1948), under which their one daughter Princess Shahnaz would be brought up in Iran. In 1949, Fawzia remarried Colonel Ismail Chirine, an Egyptian diplomat, with whom she had a son and a daughter. Princess Fawzia was born Her Sultanic Highness Princess Fawzia bint Fuad at Ras el-Tin Palace, Alexandria, the eldest daughter of Sultan Fuad I of Egypt and Sudan (later King Fuad I), and his second wife, Nazli Sabri on 5 November 1921. Princess Fawzia Fuad was of Albanian, Turkish, French, Greek and Circassian descent. Her mother's maternal grandfather was Major General Mohamed Sherif Pasha, prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, who was of Turkish origin. She was also a great- granddaughter of the French- born officer Suleiman Pasha. Suleiman Pasha served under Napoleon, converted to Islam, and oversaw an overhaul of the Egyptian army under her great-great grandfather Muhammad Ali Pasha the Great. In addition to her sisters, Faiza, Faika and Fathia, and her brother, Farouk, she had two half-siblings from her father's previous marriage to Princess Shwikar Khanum Effendi. Princess Fawzia was educated in Switzerland and was fluent in English and French in addition to her native Arabic. Her beauty was often compared to that of film stars Hedy Lamarr and Vivien Leigh. The marriage of Princess Fawzia to Iran's Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was planned by the latter's father, Rezā Shāh. A declassified CIA report in May 1972 described the union as a political move. The marriage was also significant in that it united a Sunni royal, the Princess, and a Shia royal, the Crown Prince. 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 to have the House of Pahlavi married to the House of Ali, who had reigned over Egypt since 1805. The Egyptians were not impressed with the gifts sent by Reza Shah to King Farouk as to persuade him to marry his sister to prince Mohammad Reza, and when an Iranian delegation arrived in Cairo to arrange the marriage, the Egyptians took the Iranians on a tour of the palaces built by Isma'il Pasha, known as "Isma'il the Magnificent", to show them proper royal splendor. King Farouk was not initially interested in marrying off his sister to the Crown Prince of Iran, but Aly Maher Pasha, the king's favorite political adviser, persuaded him that a marriage alliance with Iran would improve Egypt's position within the Islamic world and against Britain. At the same time, Maher Pasha was working on plans to marry off Farouk's other sisters to King Faisal II of Iraq and to the son of Emir Abdullah of Jordan, planning on forging an Egyptian-dominated bloc in the Middle East. To prepare for life in Iran, Fawzia was assigned a tutor to teach her Persian. Princess Fawzia of Egypt and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi were engaged in May 1938. However, they saw each other only once before their wedding. They married at the Abdeen Palace in Cairo on 15 March 1939. King Farouk took the couple on a tour of Egypt, showing them the Pyramids, Al-Azhar University, and other famous sites in Egypt. The contrast between the Crown Prince Mohammad Reza, dressed in a simple uniform of an Iranian officer vs. the lavish opulence of the Egyptian court, with the famously free-spending Farouk who wore expensive suits was much remarked upon at the time. After the wedding, King Farouk had a twenty course meal to celebrate the wedding at the Abdeen Palace. At the time prince Mohammad Reza lived in awe of his overbearing father, Reza Shah, and was dominated by Farouk, who was considerably more self- confident. Afterwards, Fawzia departed for Iran together with her mother, Queen Nazli, on a train trip that saw the electricity break down several times, causing the two women to feel like they were going on a camping trip. When they returned to Iran the wedding ceremony was repeated at Marble Palace, Tehran, which was also their future residence.
As prince Mohammad Reza spoke no Turkish (one of the languages of the Egyptian elite, the other being French) and princess Fawzia was described as being only "competent" in Persian, the two talked to each other in French, in which both were fluent.
