Fuad I of Egypt

Fuad I (26 March 1868 – 28 April 1936), born Ahmad Fuad, was the ruler of Egypt from 1917 to 1936: the last Sultan of Egypt and then, from 15 March 1922, its first king. The youngest son of Khedive Isma'il, he succeeded his elder brother Hussein Kamel, changed his title when Britain unilaterally declared Egyptian independence in 1922, and reigned through the 1923 constitution and frequent dissolutions of parliament. ^{1 2}

He was born at Giza Palace in Cairo, the fifth issue and youngest son of Isma'il Pasha; his mother was Ferial Qadin. He spent his childhood with his exiled father in Naples and was educated at the military academy in Turin, Italy. Before his accession he played a major part in establishing the Egyptian University (now Cairo University) and was its first rector, from 1908 until his resignation in 1913, when Hussein Rushdi Pasha succeeded him. He was also president of the Egyptian Geographic Society from 1915 to 1918. ^{1 2}

The English article reports two episodes, presented there as matters of politics rather than of personal faith. In 1911, after Italy invaded Tripoli and Cyrenaica, Prince Ahmed Fuad sought to establish himself as the Arab Muslim ruler of Libya under the Italian crown; Italy preferred direct colonial rule. In 1913 Azzam Pasha suggested nominating him for the throne of Albania, whose Muslims wanted a Muslim king; the European powers instead chose a German prince in March 1914. ¹

He ascended the throne of the Sultanate of Egypt on his brother Hussein Kamel's death in 1917. After the revolution of 1919, Britain ended its protectorate and recognised Egypt as a sovereign state on 28 February 1922; on 15 March 1922 Fuad changed his title from Sultan to King. The 1923 constitution granted him vast powers, and he made frequent use of the right to dissolve parliament; cabinets were dismissed at royal will and parliaments rarely lasted their full term. In 1930 he abrogated the 1923 constitution for a more limited one, but large-scale public dissatisfaction compelled him to restore it in 1935. He was also a force in modern Egyptian historiography: he employed archivists to copy and arrange eighty-seven volumes of correspondence about his ancestors from European archives, building the Royal Archives in the 1930s. ^{1 3}

He married first his cousin Shivakiar Ibrahim (married 1895, divorced 1898), surviving an attempt on his life by her brother, who shot him in the throat in 1898, a scar he carried for life. In 1919 he married Nazli Sabri, with whom he had five children, among them the future King Farouk and Fawzia, who became queen consort of Iran. He died on 28 April 1936 at Qubbah Palace in Cairo, reportedly of heart failure, was succeeded by his sixteen-year-old son Farouk, and was buried at the Khedival mausoleum in the al-Rifai Mosque in Cairo. ^{1 2}