Gaddafi vs. al-Nuri — The Dictator Divorced His Wife Because She Wasn't His 'Dream Girl'

What Happened

In 1969, shortly after leading the military coup that overthrew King Idris of Libya, 27-year-old Colonel Muammar Gaddafi married Fatiha al-Nuri, the daughter of General Khalid, a senior figure in the deposed king's administration. The marriage was arranged, and Gaddafi later said he never met al-Nuri until the day of their wedding, in keeping with tradition. She was a former school teacher from a middle-class background.

The marriage was extraordinarily brief. Their son Muhammad was born in 1970, but by that same year, Gaddafi had divorced Fatiha. His stated reason was breathtakingly blunt: she was 'not my dream girl.' For a man who had just seized control of an entire nation, the arranged marriage to a figure connected to the old regime may have been politically useful at first but quickly became an inconvenience.

Almost immediately after the divorce, Gaddafi married Safia Farkash, a former nurse from the Obeidat tribe whom he had met in 1969 when he was hospitalized with appendicitis. Safia would remain his wife for the rest of his life, bearing him seven children. She fled to Algeria after the 2011 Libyan revolution that ended Gaddafi's 42-year rule and led to his death.

Fatiha al-Nuri largely disappeared from public life after the divorce. As the ex-wife of a man who would become one of the world's most notorious dictators, she lived in a peculiar kind of obscurity — connected to one of the most famous names in the world but entirely absent from the historical narrative. Her story illustrates how arranged marriages in contexts of political upheaval can be used as strategic tools and discarded just as strategically.

Legal Breakdown: Arranged marriages in authoritarian contexts

What This Means for Your Divorce