Lineage and Early Life
Her great-grandfather was Governor of Riyadh during the 1840s. Her grandfather had been taken to Turkey as a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire following the collapse of the First Saudi State. Iffat bint Ahmed was born in 1916. Her father, Ahmed Al Thunayan, returned as adviser to King Abdulaziz during World War I. Her mother was Hungarian or Circassian. Although a descendant of the royal family of Saudi Arabia, the Al Saud, she had been born and raised in Istanbul before her marriage to Prince Faisal in 1932. She is part of the Al Thunayan cadet branch of the Al Saud. Her father died as a Turkish army officer. Her mother sent Iffat for schooling to Istanbul under the care of her aunt— Jawharan Bint Abdullah Al Thunayan.
Iffat was very poor. She went to school wearing shoes stuffed with paper instead of soles. She attained a teaching degree. Because of the late 1920s fall of the Ottoman Empire, she and her family returned to Saudi Arabia. In 1925, Iffat's family asked for financial assistance for a Makkah pilgrimage for Iffat.
One of her sisters was married to late Prince Sultan, Laila al Thunayyan.
Read more about this topic: Iffat Al-Thunayan
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