Early Life
He was the son of Khedive Ismail, and was born on November 15, 1852. His mother was the Princess Shafiq-Nur. Although he was the eldest son, he was not sent to Europe to be educated like his younger brothers, but was left to grow up in Egypt.
In 1866, Ismail succeeded in his endeavor to alter the order of succession to the Khedivate of Egypt. The title, instead of passing to the eldest living male descendant of Muhammad Ali, was now to descend from father to son. Ismail sought this alteration mainly because he disliked his uncle, Halim Pasha, who was his heir-presumptive, and he had imagined that he would be able to select whichever of his sons he pleased for his successor.
But he found, after the change had been made, that the powers interpreted the new arrangement as applying strictly to the eldest son. Tewfik therefore became heir-apparent.
He was given a palace near Cairo to live in, and for twelve years he passed an uneventful life, farming, and establishing a reputation for good sense and fair dealing with his fellow tenants.
Read more about this topic: Tewfik Pasha
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)