Career
In a bid to ensure his succession, and also to rekindle some public enthusiasm towards a decaying dynasty, he let it be known that he was in the market for a new bride, preferably an Egyptian, well-heeled but not of the aristocracy. Marriage to King Farouk Known as the "Cinderella of the Nile" for her middle-class background, Nariman was selected in part as a populist gesture to prop up public opinion of the monarchy. She broke off her previous engagement to a Harvard doctoral student named Zaki Hashem and was sent to Egypt"s embassy in Rome to learn how to perform her royal duties.
While in Rome she assumed the identity of the ambassador"s niece in order to hide the purpose of her presence.
At the embassy she studied history, etiquette, and four European languages. Also, as a consequence of the king"s order that she return to Egypt weighing at most 110 pounds, she was put on a strict weight-loss program
The couple"s wedding was lavish and extravagant. Nariman wore a bridal gown embroidered with 20,000 diamonds, and the two received many expensive presents.
Those presents that were made of gold were subsequently secretly melted down into ingots.
Later that year, Farouk was forced to abdicate by the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Fuad"s largely symbolic reign was cut short, however, with the establishment of a republic the following year. Following Farouk"s abdication, the royal family went into exile (aboard the royal yacht "El-Mahrousa").
In March 1953.
Bored with the itinerant lifestyle and tired of Farouk"s philandering, Narriman returned to Egypt with her mother, to her former position as a commoner. She lived in seclusion in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis until her death. Nariman Fahmi died on 16 February 2005 in Dar al-Fouad hospital, on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, after a brain hemorrhage.