Fathiya Fuad | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Princess of Egypt | |||||
Born |
Koubbeh Palace, Cairo, Kingdom of Egypt |
17 December 1930||||
Died | 10 December 1976 Los Angeles, California, United States |
(aged 45)||||
Burial | Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, United States | ||||
Spouse | Riyad Ghali (m. 1950; div. 1973) | ||||
Issue | Rafiq Ghali Raid Ghali Rania Ghali |
||||
|
|||||
House | House of Muhammad Ali (by birth) | ||||
Father | Fuad I | ||||
Mother | Nazli Sabri | ||||
Religion | Roman Catholicism, formerly Islam |
Full name | |
---|---|
Fathia Fuad Ismail Ibrahim |
Fathia Ghali (née Fathia Fuad) (Arabic: فتحية بنت فؤاد الأول) (17 December 1930 – 10 December 1976) was the youngest daughter of Fuad I of Egypt and Nazli Sabri, and so the youngest sister of Farouk I.
Fathia was born on 17 December 1930 at the Koubbeh Palace, El-Quba, Cairo. She was of Turkish, Albanian, French and Circassian descent. Her father died when she was five years old. She was raised mostly close to her mother and her sister Faika. In 1948, she travelled with her sister Faika and her mother to the United States for her mother needed to undergo a kidney surgery.
After her mother's surgery succeeded, Fathia settled in the United States for a long time, and in 1949, her sister Faika married Fuad Sadek. After a while and in 1950, she herself married Riyad Ghali, their Royal Advisor, who was 11 years her senior, and was a Christian. In 1950, Nazli and Fathia both converted from Islam to Catholicism. She married at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, California, USA on 25 April 1950 (civ) and 11 May 1950 (rel). King Farouk was shocked and humiliated by the scandal and sacrilege, Farouk, in effect, excommunicated the two women, confiscating their extensive lands and banning them from Egypt forever. Faika went back to Egypt in 1951 to get back her title, and she did, and her husband Fuad Sadek got the "Bekdom" or held the title "Fuad Bek Sadek". Fathia and her mother settled in the United States for the rest of her life, having many troubles that made her reach to living in a small flat in California. Later in 1973, she divorced Riyad Ghali because of bad investments that made them lose almost everything they owned. Later, her mother's jewelry was sold for $1,500,000. Fathia also worked as a cleaning lady to pay her debt. Some time later, her mother sent a request to President Anwar El-Sadat to retrieve their Egyptian passports, which he granted. However, some days before them two going back to Egypt, Fathia was killed by her husband, as explained below.