The latest in Al Arabiya’s series on the colorful reign of Egypt’s King Farouk looks at his failed marriage with Narriman Sadek, a commoner who became Egypt’s last queen, as revealed through the monarch’s long-forgotten memoirs and interviews.
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Tears were streaming down King Farouk’s face. His wife, Queen Narriman, was giving birth to the future sovereign of Egypt, who was one month premature. The current king, who had kept a bedside vigil by Narriman’s bed, held her hand, repeating “Push, Nunny, push!”
The rarely seen memoirs of Egypt’s King Farouk paint a rosy picture of his early married life. But some say the union quickly deteriorated after Farouk’s overthrow in July 1952.
“It cannot be considered a happy marriage,” said Akram el-Nakeeb, Narriman’s son from a subsequent marriage. Narriman’s memories of her exile with Farouk and their divorce in Feb. 1954 - which she initiated - were “nasty, painful and depressing,” Nakeeb told Al Arabiya News.
In the divorce proceedings, Farouk had given her the choice to either stay with him or return to Egypt without their two-year-old child, Ahmed Fuad, who had for less than a year been the de jure king of Egypt before the monarchy was formally abolished.
Narriman chose to leave Farouk.
The ex-queen – who Nakeeb still refers to as “mummy” – was “in agony” at leaving her son “so that she [was] able to return back to her home land at the time.”