The marriage of the king and a commoner was presented to the world as matter of romantic love, but in fact the marriage had been arranged by Queen Nazli, who herself was a commoner and did not want her son to marry a princess from the Turco-Circassian elite who would outrank her. Queen Nazli had chosen Zulficar as her daughter-in-law because she was 15 years old and thus presumably could be molded, and came from an upper-middle-class family like herself (Zulficar's mother was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Nazli) and was fluent in French, the language of Egypt's elite. Zulficar's father refused to give permission for the marriage under the grounds that his daughter was 15 and too young to be married, and decided to take a vacation in Beirut. Unwilling to take no for an answer, Farouk phoned the police chief of Alexandria, who arrested Judge Zulficar as he was boarding the ship for Beirut, and the judge was taken to the Montaza Palace. At the Montaza palace, Farouk was waiting and bribed Judge Zulficar into granting permission for the marriage by making him into a pasha. At Salfinaz Zulficar's 16th birthday party, Farouk arrived in his Alfa Romeo automobile to propose marriage, and at the same time renamed her Farida because he believed names that started with F were lucky. (Safinaz is Persian for "pure rose" while Farida is Arabic for "the only one"; Farouk's decision to give his bride an Arabic name appealed to the masses.) Farouk gave Farida a cheque for a sum in Egyptian pounds equivalent to $50,000 US dollars as a wedding dowry and a diamond ring worth just as much for the engagement. Outside of the Ras El Tin Palace, when the wedding was announced, 22 people were crushed to death and 140 badly injured when the crowd rushed forward to hear the news.