HOLY CROSS CEMETERY AND MAUSOLEUM
Los Angeles, California

FINAL RESTING PLACE OF EGYPT'S FORMER QUEEN

Queen Nazli's official court photo

Queen Nazli and her five children: H.M. King Farouk, HRH Princess Faika, HRH Princess Faiza; front row: HRH Princess Fawzia (later Empress of Persia) and HRH Princess Fatheya (holding bunny rabbit) and (below) HRH Prince Farouk as a teenager in 1936

photos of cemetery and memorial plaques by Samir Raafat

the Catholic Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, Los Angeles

Born in 1894 in Alexandria Nazli Abdelrehim Sabry married Egypt's King Fouad and was the mother of King Farouk who bestowed upon her the title of 'Queen Mother' on 20 January 1938
the title was withdrawn on 8 August 1950 in retaliation of engineering the marriage of the King's youngest sister to Riad Ghali a Coptic commoner and sometime administrative employee at Egypt's Foreign Affairs. The Egyptian monarch considered him both an opportunist, a predator and a sleaze. Time would prove him right
Whereas Queen Nazli's Catholic French-born great-grandfather Joseph Anthelme Seve (1788-1860) a.k.a. Soliman Fransawi Pasha converted to Islam in the 19th century, she considered converting to Catholicism allegedly after undergoing several successful surgical interventions at Minnesota's Mayo Clinic in 1947-8-9. Thus another reason for stripping her of her title and royal prerogatives in 1950
Perhaps to appease her son, Queen Nazli allegedly donated US$ 5,000 for the construction of a mosque in San Fransisco shortly after her youngest daughter's wedding to Riad Ghali in Spring 1950
Queen Nazli died on 29 June 1978

the youngest daughter of King Fouad and Queen Nazli lies next to her mother who survived her by two years

Born a royal princess in Cairo's Kubbeh Palace on 17 December 1930, Fatheya (also spelt Fathiya, Fathia) died on 10 December 1976 in West Hollywood the result of several shot wounds. The killer was her estranged husband Riad B. Ghali. He was sentenced to imprisonment on charges of involuntary manslaughter but released a year later on the grounds of poor health

Fatheya married Ghali at the Fairmont Hotel in San Fransisco on 25 April 1950. Together with Queen Nazli, the couple lived a life of luxury in the Los Angeles county of Beverly Hills, off Benedict Canyon Drive
When the money started to run out, the Queen, her daughter and son-in-law, were forced to live under less luxurious circumstances in Santa Monica and later in an apartment West of Hollywood. Later, in 1973, Fatheya filed for bankruptcy and was forced to forego her mother's last remaining jewels in lieu of outstanding debts at a Los Angeles court on Monday 22 September 1976

tombstone of Princess Fatheya's husband and killer who died in Santa Monica on 13 July 1987.

item in the Canberra Times, Monday, 15 May 1950

Forced into a loveless marriage with Sultan (later King) Fouad at the Bostan Palace on 14 May 1919, the headstrong Queen Nazli did not contest the nuptials of her two youngest daughters. Against King Farouk's wishes both married in California in 1950. Both spouses were Egyptian commoners, one a Moslem the other a Coptic Christian
On the other hand, Queen Nazli's two eldest daughters married foreigners. The eldest, Fawzia, married the crown prince of Persia who shortly after became Shah of Iran. When that marriage failed she re-married her British-educated distant Egyptian relative
Queen Nazli's second daughter, Faiza, married her Turkish-born second cousin Mohammed-Ali Bulent Raouf who, after his divorce, became a mystic spiritual teacher in Scotland
Princess Faiza died in Westwood, Los Angeles in July 1994. Of Muslim faith, she was not buried with her mother and sister at the Holy Cross Cemetery

a bejeweled Queen Nazli, 61 years old, standing next to hospitality baron Conrad Hilton at the 1955 inauguration of the Beverly Hilton at Beverly Hills, Los Angeles
Left of photo: Fatheya and Riad Ghali

at odds alive, side by side in death