Samira Khashoggi

Samira Khashoggi (or Kashoggi) (1935 – March 1986) was an influential, progressive author of several books as well as the owner and editor-in chief of Alsharkiah Magazine. She was the first wife of Egyptian born Mohamed Al-Fayed, and the mother of Dodi Fayed. She then married Ambassador Anas Yassin and had her second child Jumana Yassin.

Her father Muhammad Khashoggi was a medical doctor of Turkish descent,^[1] and was King Abdul Aziz Al Saud's personal doctor.^[2] The family name means spoonmaker (Kaşıkçı) in Turkish. She was the sister of Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi.

She wrote under the pseudonym Samirah ‘Daughter of the Arabian Peninsula’. Her books include Wadda’t Amali (Farewell to my Dreams, 1958) “Thekrayāt Dām’ah’ (Tearful Memories, 1963), ‘Wara’ Aldabab’ (Beyond the Cloud, 1971), Qatrat Min ad-Dumu’(Teardrops,1979) and ‘Barīq Aynaik’(The Sparkle of Your Eyes). Since 1972, Al-Sharkiah (the oriental woman) has been the leading monthly pan Arab women’s magazine. Khashoggi was the first Saudi female publisher and columnist; a dynamic, pioneering and highly respected thinker.

She met Mohamed Al-Fayed on the beach in Alexandria,^[3] and they married in 1954. The marriage lasted two years, and produced one child, Dodi Fayed. Samira separated from Mohamed Al-Fayed just months after Dodi's birth. She died of a heart attack in 1986 aged 51.

She was the aunt of actress Nabila Khashoggi.^[4]

Her son Dodi Fayed was reportedly devoted to her, and would telephone her almost every day up to her death. Dodi once told a friend: "If it meant giving up everything I have—cars, wealth, and women—I would do it to bring my mother back."^[5]

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