Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
First marriage

One of the main initiatives of Iranian and Turkish foreign policy had been the Saadabad Pact of 1937, an alliance bringing together Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with the intent of creating a Muslim bloc that, it was hoped, would deter any aggressors. President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk of Turkey suggested to his friend Reza Khan during the latter's visit that a marriage between the Iranian and Egyptian courts would be beneficial for the two countries and their dynasties, as it might lead to Egypt joining the Saadabad pact. Dilawar Princess Fawzia of Egypt (5 November 1921 – 2 July 2013) was daughter of King Fuad I of Egypt and Nazli Sabri and sister of King Farouk I of Egypt. In line with Atatürk's suggestion, Mohammad Reza and the Egyptian Princess Fawzia were married on 15 March 1939 in the Abdeen Palace in Cairo. Reza Shah did not participate in the ceremony. During his visit to Egypt, Mohammad Reza was greatly impressed with the grandeur of the Egyptian court as he visited the various palaces built by Isma'il Pasha, aka "Isma'il the Magnificent", the famously free-spending Khedive of Egypt, and resolved that Iran needed similarly grandiose palaces to match them.

Mohammad Reza's marriage to Fawzia produced one child, Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi (born 27 October 1940). Their marriage was not a happy one, as the Crown Prince was openly unfaithful, often being seen driving around Tehran in one of his expensive cars with one of his girlfriends. Additionally, Mohammad Reza's dominating and possessive mother saw her daughter-in-law as a rival to her son's love, and took to humiliating Princess Fawzia, whose husband sided with his mother. A quiet, shy woman, Fawzia described her marriage as miserable, feeling very much unwanted and unloved by the Pahlavi family and longing to return to Egypt. In his 1961 book Mission For My Country, Mohammad Reza wrote that the "only happy light moment" of his entire marriage to Fawzia was the birth of his daughter.
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