Queen Farida, born Safinaz Zulficar was the first wife of King Farouk.
Background
Farida was born on 5 September 1921 to an Egyptian noble family in Gianaclis, Alexandria. Her father, judge Youssef Zulficar Pasha, was vice president of the Alexandria Mixed Court of Appeals. Her mother was Zainab Khanum, lady-in-waiting to Queen Nazli.
Education
She attended elementary and primary education at Notre Dame de Sion in Alexandria, a school run by French nuns.
Career
She was queen of Egypt for nearly eleven years. Her family was Egyptian Circassian. She had as a maternal grandfather Turkish prime minister Muhammad Said Pasha and was the niece of renowned artist Mahmoud Said.
Farida and King Farouk first met on a royal trip to London in 1937.
Queen Farida was born in a time 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 rose to higher grounds. The first lady became an honorary title bearing with it duties of attending charities, fundraisers, commemorations and receiving foreign dignitaries.
Queen Farida accepted chair of the Red Crescent Society and was also honorary president of the 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 Farida stayed in Egypt until 1964, living in Zamalek, a suburb on an island in the Nile. Then, she lived in Paris from 1968 to 1974 until she returned to Egypt in 1974, during the presidency of Anwar First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Sadat.
During the late 1960s, she began painting.
An artist, she had personal exhibitions in Europe and United States of America. One of her exhibitions was in Cairo in May 1980. Farida was hospitalized in September 1988 due to several health-problems, including leukemia, pneumonia and hepatitis.
On 2 October, she was put in intensive care and then, she lapsed into coma. She died of leukemia on 16 October 1988, aged 67, in Cairo.
National honours Foreign honours.
Membership
She was renamed Farida in accordance with the tradition initiated by King Fuad I that members of the royal family should bear the same initials.