My mum was a great fan of Queens of Egypt. My name happen to be the name of the last queen. She was born in 1934. Died in March 2005 if I'm not mistaken at the age of 72. Unfortunately I'm not as pretty as she is :)
FYI - just a short write up on the Queen.
Born on 31 October 1934 to parents of moderate means -- Hussein Fahmi Sadek Bey and Aseela Hanem -- Nariman appeared destined for a relatively average, if comfortable, life: marriage, motherhood, and the respectability afforded by a carefully- deliberated suitor of good family. A commoner, certainly by the standards of Egypt's ruling family, Nariman grew up an only child on the coast of Alexandria. Said to have been even of temperament, content with her painting, music and books, Nariman soon found an eligible young suitor. At 16 she was engaged to the perfectly respectable Dr Zaki Hashem.
It was the same age that Farouk had ascended the throne following the sudden death of his father, the somewhat brusque King Fouad. Dragged from the seclusion of high palace walls Farouk was thrust centre stage, to occupy a role that was clearly beyond his experience and, some say, his intellectual capacity.
As expected, a wife soon became part of palace entourage. On 20 January 1938 Farouk was married to Queen Farida (a princess in her own right), with whom he had three children: Fawzia, Fadia, and Ferial. The marriage ended in divorce in 1948. Cairo gossips pointed an accusing finger at the queen and whispered adultery, though her greatest crime was possibly not having provided a son and heir.
"The king vows to take a commoner as his wife," rang out the newspaper headlines the following days. "King Farouk vows to have a son from a commoner."
"It was not his intention to go out and seek a commoner for a wife," the late Adel Sabet told me before his death in 2001. Sabet, a cousin of the king, became Farouk's intermediary between the palace and the secretary-general of the Arab League during the critical years preceding and following the ruinous 1948 war in Palestine. "But the press was ruthless, with both him and later his second wife, Queen Nariman Sadek."
The king did eventually choose a wife from among the "people", a young woman not of royal lineage. Farouk is rumoured to have first spotted Nariman in a jewellery shop. And Egypt's then- dashing young king brooked no opposition to his desires. Nariman's engagement to Hashem was promptly dissolved.
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