Fuad I (Arabic: فؤاد الأول Fu’ād al-Awwal; 26 March 1868 – 28 April 1936) was the Sultan and later King of Egypt and the Sudan.
The ninth ruler of Egypt and Sudan from the Muhammad Ali dynasty, he became Sultan in 1917, succeeding his elder brother Hussein Kamel.
In 1913, Fuad made unsuccessful attempts to secure the throne of Albania for himself, which had obtained its independence from the Ottoman Empire a year earlier.
At the time, Egypt and Sudan was ruled by his nephew, Abbas II, and the likelihood of Fuad becoming the monarch in his own country seemed remote.
In the aftermath of the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, the United Kingdom ended its protectorate over Egypt, and recognised it as a sovereign state on 28 February 1922.
During his reign, cabinets were dismissed at royal will, and parliaments never lasted for their full four-year term but were dissolved by decree.
Fuad's efforts to portray his ancestors – especially his great-grandfather Muhammad Ali, his grandfather Ibrahim, and his father – as nationalists and benevolent monarchs would prove to be an enduring influence on Egyptian historiography.
[9] During a dispute with the brother of his first wife, Prince Ahmad Saif-uddin Ibrahim Bey, Fuad was shot in the throat.
The couple had five children, the future King Farouk, and four daughters, the Princesses Fawzia (who became queen consort of Iran), Faiza, Faika, and Fathia.