The Nizam of Hyderabad, at the time considered the richest man in the world, had won their hand in marriage for his two sons.
Selma traveled to India to marry Syed Sajid Husain Ali, Raja of Kotwara, in 1937.
[2][3][5][6] However, after growing up first in the splendor of imperial Istanbul and then in cosmopolitan Beirut, Selma had great trouble adjusting to her new environment.
In the summer of 1939, pregnant with her first child, Selma traveled to Paris, under the pretext of the upcoming royal delivery.
She was accompanied only by a faithful retainer of her birth family, a eunuch named Zeynel Agha, who had come to India with her.