Anwar al-Sadat

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• Born: 25 December 1918
• Birthplace: Tala District, Egypt
• Died: 6 October 1981 (assassination)
• Best Known As: President of Egypt, 1970-81

Anwar al-Sadat was Egypt's president from 1970 until his assassination in 1981. He came to political power as an associate of Gamal Abdel Nasser, leader of the revolution that overthrew the monarchy (and British colonial rule) in 1952. Sadat graduated from military school in 1938 and straight away went about working to dismantle colonialism, initially pinning his hopes on Hitler's Germany as Britain's enemy. He spent most of the 1940s in jail for his agitations against the British in Egypt, but after Nasser took power (1954) Sadat rose in the ranks of the new government, holding various high-level positions, including vice president (1964-66, 1969-70). Nasser died in September of 1970 and Sadat became president in October. In an effort to regain control of losses from the 1967 Six Day War, Sadat ordered an attack on Israeli forces in 1973 and showed enough strength to force peace negotiations. He made overt gestures of peace to Israel and wooed U.S. president Jimmy Carter into assisting with negotiations. The resulting peace agreement, the Camp David Accords, earned Sadat the 1978 Nobel Prize for Peace (he shared it with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin). But his domestic economic plan was a failure, and his negotiations with Israel led to violent criticism at home; Sadat's attempts to crack down on public dissension only made things worse. He was assassinated in 1981 by Islamic fundamentalists who opposed the peace treaty with Israel, and he was succeeded by Hosni Mubarak.

(b. Mitabulkum, Egypt 25 Dec. 1918; d. 6 Oct. 1981) Egyptian; President 1970 – 81 Sadat graduated from the Royal Military Academy, Cairo, in 1938. In 1942 he was imprisoned for pro-Axis activities. He became a leading member of the Free Officer group in 1949, though he was initially excluded from its inner circle by Nasser for his perceived Islamic sympathies. Sadat, by then a close associate of Nasser, became chairman of Egypt's sole political party in 1957 and chaired the National Assembly from 1959 to 1969. He became a Vice-President in 1964 and sole Vice-President in 1969, in which capacity he took over the presidency in 1970 on Nasser's death.

Initially perceived as a weak leader, Sadat was to effect dramatic political changes within Egypt and in its external relations. The expulsion of Soviet military advisers in 1972 began the severance of close military and economic ties with the USSR which was completed in 1976. With his Syrian ally, Sadat renewed the war against Israel in October 1973, thereby ending years of stalemate and also considerably enhancing his personal reputation, both internally and internationally. In Egypt, his pre-eminence enabled him to amnesty political prisoners, lift press censorship, curb the police, and introduce a reform programme focused on economic reconstruction, attracting foreign investment and developing the private sector. Post-war Egypt also achieved a rapprochement with the USA in 1973 – 4. In 1977, Sadat paid a historic visit to Jerusalem at the invitation of Prime Minister Begin, setting in motion a diplomatic process that culminated in the US-brokered Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel of 1978 and the peace treaty of 1979. The settlement resulted in Egypt's isolation within the Arab world, heavier reliance on American economic and military aid, and Sadat's assassination by Islamic fundamentalists in 1981.

Anwar Sadat (1918-1981) was Egypt's president from 1970 until his assassination. He launched a surprise attack on Israel in 1973, then became the first Arab leader to sign a peace treaty with Israel. He shifted from Soviet to American patronage and relaxed Egypt's internal economic and political system.

Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat was born in 1918. His village, Mit Abul Kom, is about 40 miles north of Cairo in the Nile delta. Sadat lived with his grandmother while his father, a minor civil service clerk, was away in the Sudan with his Sudanese wife. The boy attended a village Quran (Moslem) school, then went briefly to a Coptic (Christian) school.

His parents returned to Egypt in 1925, and Sadat went to live with them in Cairo. In later years he relished visits to his village and spoke nostalgically of his humble rural origins. Sadat's father struggled to support 13 children on his modest salary. Poor grades led Sadat to shift from government to private secondary schools on two occasions, but in 1936 he earned the coveted secondary school certificate.

Plotting against British Rule and King Farouk

As a schoolboy, Sadat frequently demonstrated against the British, who occupied Egypt at that time. His heroes were all nationalists: Mahatma Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Ataturk, and Egyptians Saad Zaghlul, Mustafa Kamil, and Mustafa Nahhas. He also admired a peasant martyr from Dinshaway (near Mit Abul Kom) whom the British had executed in 1906.

One result of the 1936 treaty which Prime Minister Nahhas signed with the British was the opening of the military academy to lower middle class youths like Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser. Sadat graduated from the academy in 1938 and was posted to Manqabad in Upper Egypt. There he first met Nasser, a natural leader, serious and somewhat aloof. The idealistic young officers talked politics, debating the best way to rid their country of the British.

In 1939 Sadat entered the Signal Corps. While Nasser was off in the Sudan, Sadat plotted direct action against the British. Occasionally he met with Hassan Al-Banna, the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group of religious zealots who wanted to root out Western and secular influences and turn Egypt into a theocracy.

Axis forces based in Libya pushed into Egypt in 1941, hoping to seize the vital Suez Canal. In the following year the British arrested Sadat for plotting with two German spies who were living in a Nile houseboat and trying to send information to Rommel's army. Escaping from jail in October 1944, Sadat hid out until the end of the war made it safe for him to resurface. He then participated in an unsuccessful attempt on the life of former prime minister Nahhas, who had cooperated with the British during the war. Sadat's role in the killing of Amin Osman, an Anglophile politician, landed him back in jail in January 1946. Sadat's friendship with King Farouk's private doctor linked him to the Iron Guard, a secret palace organization which struck at the king's enemies.

The trial of Sadat and others in the Amin Osman case was overshadowed by the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The principal defendant escaped; Sadat and the others were acquitted and released. After dabbling in business schemes for a year or two Sadat won reinstatement in the army. He reestablished contact with Nasser's circle, who were now calling themselves "Free Officers" and planning to overthrow the corrupt and inept government. The riots of January 1952 destroyed foreign-owned businesses throughout Cairo and completed the public's disillusionment with the playboy king and the old politicians.

Nasser summoned Sadat to Cairo from his post in Sinai on the evening of July 22, 1952. But finding no further message from his chief, Sadat took his family to the movies and nearly missed the coup. However, it was Sadat who broadcast the news of the coup to the public on the morning of July 23. King Farouk was sent into exile and Brigadier Mohamed Naguib served as the Free Officers' front man until Nasser broke with him and put him under house arrest in 1954.

The posts Sadat held during the Nasser years were not quite at the center of power. He edited the regime's newspaper, al-Gumhuriya. He served as secretary-general of the Islamic Congress and of the National Union, the forerunner of the Arab Socialist Union and Egypt's only political party. During the 1960s he was speaker of the National Assembly. Sadat, along with Field Marshall Abdel Hakim Amer, bears much of the responsibility for Egypt's disastrous involvement in the Yemeni civil war (1962-1967). Then Egypt's defeat by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War nearly destroyed Nasser's regime. Aware of his ill-health and of plots against him, Nasser named Sadat vice president at the end of 1969. Nicknamed "Major Yes-Yes" for his acquiescence to Nasser's wishes, Sadat had outlasted most of the other Free Officers who might have inherited the presidency.

Sadat Takes Command

Nasser died of a heart attack on September 28, 1970. A plebiscite quickly confirmed Sadat as his successor. Ali Sabri and others in the Arab Socialist Union, the army, and the intelligence organizations assumed Sadat could soon be shouldered aside. But Sadat's "Corrective Revolution" of May 1971 sent the plotters to jail and consolidated his grip on power. A treaty of friendship reassured the nervous Soviets a few days later.

Sadat liked to govern by surprises. In February 1971 he unexpectedly extended a ceasefire with the Israelis on the Suez front and announced plans to reopen the canal even though the enemy was entrenched on the opposite bank. Unable to obtain enough Soviet support for a military showdown and under increasing domestic pressure to act, Sadat pulled off another surprise in the summer of 1972. He expelled the numerous Soviet military advisers from Egypt.

Failing to win American attention as he had hoped, Sadat now openly declared his intention to fight Israel. No one took him seriously, so the Syrian-Egyptian attack on October 6, 1973, came as a surprise. Egypt's successful crossing of the Suez Canal contrasted with the 1967 fiasco, but the Israeli counter crossing under General Sharon left Egyptian forces in a critical position by the time U.S. and Soviet intervention produced a ceasefire. Sadat always portrayed the Yom Kippur War as an unqualified victory, calling himself "The Hero of the Crossing."

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger were paying attention at last. Sadat abandoned his Soviet option and risked all on Egyptian alignment with the United States. Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy produced limited Israeli pullbacks in Sinai in 1974 and 1975. Thereafter progress toward a settlement bogged down until Sadat's astonishing visit to Jerusalem in November 1977 to meet Prime Minister Menachem Begin and address the Knesset. President Jimmy Carter's personal diplomacy brought Begin and Sadat together at Camp David in September 1978. They signed two "framework" agreements, one providing for an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty within three months, the other for a five-year transition toward autonomy and Palestinian self-government in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Begin and Sadat signed the final treaty in March 1979, and they shared the Nobel Peace Prize for 1978. The Palestinian part of the agreement remained a dead letter, however, with Begin pursuing hardline policies toward the Palestinians and the other Arab states.

In renaming the United Arab Republic the Arab Republic of Egypt, Sadat signaled his intention to put Egyptian interests ahead of the Pan-Arabism of the Nasser era. Nothing practical became of the Federation of Arab Republics (Egypt, Libya, and Syria), a scheme he had inherited. The impetuous young Gaddafi of Libya, who saw himself as Nasser's true heir, turned hostile and plotted to overthrow Sadat. In July 1977 open warfare flared for a time on the Libyan-Egyptian border.

Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinians saw the Camp David agreement as being made at Arab expense. Other Arab states agreed, and at an Arab League meeting in Baghdad the Arab states decided to withdraw their ambassadors from Egypt, sever political and economic ties, and move the headquarters of the league from Cairo to Tunis. The United States compensated somewhat for the loss of Egypt's Arab ties by massively increasing its aid to Sadat.

The October 1973 war made Sadat his own man in economic policies and domestic politics as well as in foreign affairs. In 1974 he turned sharply toward economic liberalization, in contrast to the statist policies of Nasser. He proclaimed an "open door" economy, hoping it would attract private investment from Western, Arab, and Egyptian businessmen. He returned some of the lands and businesses nationalized under Nasser to their former owners. A new class of free-wheeling entrepreneurs quickly made fortunes in land speculation, luxury apartment construction, and consumer imports.

Sadat's Regime Becomes Controversial

Sadat also planned his political liberalization with American audiences in mind. Abandoning Nasser's singleparty system, he encouraged "left" and "right" splinters to break off from the Arab Socialist Union's "center" in 1976. He made sure, however, that his own center party (called the National Democratic Party since 1978) kept over-whelming control in the People's Assembly. Manipulation of the laws and government harassment kept the Progressive Unionist left, the New Wafd right, and the religious purists from mounting all-out public challenges to the regime.

Even before the signing of the treaty with Israel, the early hopes for the Sadat era were fading inside Egypt. The "open door" had brought in foreign banks, tourism, and luxury imports, and it had encouraged many Egyptians to earn quick fortunes in Egypt's oil-rich Arab neighboring countries. But there was little investment in productive industries. A contractor named Osman Ahmad Osman, whose son had married one of Sadat's daughters, came to symbolize the nepotism and opportunism of the new rich whom the public labeled "fat cats." Student and worker opposition flared into full-scale riots in January 1977 when the government, acting under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, cut back the food subsidies which cushioned poverty for the average Egyptian.

The lifestyle of Sadat and his wife Jihan also aroused concern. Sadat divorced his rustic first wife on emerging from prison in 1948. His new wife, Jihan, was half-British, good looking, and considerably younger than himself. The couple developed a taste for the good life, ordering clothes from Paris designers. Sadat's first wife had followed Middle Eastern custom by remaining in the background, but Jihan enjoyed the limelight. She spoke up for women's rights, visited hospitals, and presided at official ceremonies. Reporters abroad were delighted with the couple's Western manner and their ready accessibility for interviews. Many Egyptians were not.

In his last years the Islamic religious groups which he had at first encouraged to balance off other opponents came back to haunt Sadat. The Muslim Brotherhood and its more radical offshoots deplored the Westernization and corruption of Egyptian public life. They opposed the treaty with Israel. The example of the Iranian revolution of 1979 and their own dismal career prospects also turned educated urban youths to fundamentalist Islamic groups in large numbers. The fears of the Coptic minority mounted simultaneously, and violence between Christians and Muslims broke out on several occasions.

In September 1981 Sadat struck out wildly at his diverse opponents. He arrested hundreds of politicians of all stripes, banned journals, stripped the Coptic Pope of his temporal power over his community, and expelled the Soviet ambassador.

Sadat had lost his political touch. On October 6, 1981, Muslim religious radicals shot him down as he reviewed a military parade commemorating the 1973 war. The shocked West paid tribute to Sadat by dispatching three former U.S. presidents and other prominent statesmen to his funeral. Prime Minister Begin also attended. Egyptians and Arabs reacted differently. The streets of Cairo, which millions of mourners had jammed when Nasser died, remained eerily silent. President Nimeri of the Sudan was the only Arab head of state to attend the funeral. Sadat had left a difficult legacy to his successor, Vice President Hosni Mubarak.

Further Reading

For Sadat's own story, see his Revolt on the Nile (1957) and In Search of Identity: An Autobiography (1978). The first book defers to Nasser, while the second plays up Sadat's own role in the 1952 revolution. Jimmy Carter's Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (1982) discusses his negotiations with Sadat and Israel's Begin. David Hirst and Irene Beeson, Sadat (1981) and Mohamed Heikal, Autumn of Fury: The Assassination of Sadat (1983) provide unfavorable interpretations. P. J. Vatikiotis, Nasser and His Generation (1978) analyzes the generation of army officers to which Nasser and Sadat belonged. My Father and I (1986) by Camelia Sadat provides more intimate glimpses of the personal, as well as political, aspects of his life.

For more information on Muhammad Anwar el- Sadat, visit Britannica.com.

1918 - 1981

President of Egypt from 1970 until his assassination in 1981.

Anwar al-Sadat was born 25 December 1918 in the village of Mit Abu al-Kum in the Lower Egyptian province of Minufiyya. His father, a mid-level government official, arranged for him to enroll in primary and secondary school in Cairo, from which he was graduated in 1936. That same year, admission in the national military academy was opened to young men from nonaristocratic families, and Sadat seized the opportunity to pursue a career as a military officer. He was graduated in 1938 and was posted to Manqabad in Upper Egypt, where he became friends with another ambitious young officer, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Transferred to the outskirts of Cairo in 1939, he immediately made contact with a range of underground political organizations working against the monarchy of King Farouk. They included the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin) and a cell based in the signal corps sympathetic to Nazi Germany. Since World War II was raging in North Africa, his association with this cell led to his arrest in 1942 for conspiring against the British war effort (Britain maintained a protectorate over the Suez Canal and Egypt). Upon his escape from prison in 1945, he revived his contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood, taking part in a January 1946 plot to assassinate a prominent pro-British politician. He was arrested again in connection with this incident and spent two more years in prison awaiting trial. His longstanding connections with high-ranking but anti-British members of the armed forces won him reinstatement in the officers' corps in 1950.

Toward the end of 1951, Sadat was asked by Nasser to join the inner circle of the clandestine Free Officers movement. He played little direct part in the coup d'état headed by General Muhammad Naguib that overthrew the monarchy and brought the movement to power in July 1952, but he was chosen to broadcast the first announcement of the coup on the morning it occurred. He was thereafter editor of the newspaper al-Jumhuriyya, a member of the ruling revolutionary command council, and a minister of state.

As secretary-general of the ruling political party, the Arab Socialist Union (ASU), Sadat assumed the role of faithful subordinate to Nasser, assisting him in moving first against the Muslim Brotherhood and then against his rivals within the Free Officers. When Nasser overcame Naguib to lead the ruling junta, he repaid Sadat's loyalty by appointing him first speaker of the reconfigured national assembly in 1962, one of four vice presidents in 1964, and then, in December 1969, vice president of the republic.

Nasser's unexpected death by heart attack in September 1970 precipitated eight months of intense jockeying for power at the highest echelons of the Egyptian regime. Proponents of continuing the government's socialist economic policies - led by the secretary-general of the ASU, Ali Sabri - faced firm opposition from advocates of a more liberal order, such as the editor of the semiofficial al-Ahram newspaper, Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal. Sadat, who had been appointed provisional president by the cabinet shortly after Nasser's death, took advantage of his relatively insulated position in the national assembly to play these factions against one another, emerging as the regime's key figure when the cabinet of ministers tendered its resignation to the assembly in May 1971. He immediately charged the powerful minister of the interior with plotting to set up a police state and replaced him with a trusted ally, Mamduh Salim. He then moved to cultivate public approval by commissioning the national assembly to formulate a permanent constitution, pardoning most of the country's political prisoners and returning properties sequestered during the socialist era of the early 1960s to their original owners. At the same time, he attempted to undermine leftist influence by catering to those sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood through carefully choreographed displays of his own religiosity in the mass media and by tolerating the spread of Islamist political groups on university campuses.

These moves precipitated a wave of unrest among university students in January 1972 that persuaded Sadat to initiate major shifts in Egypt's foreign policy as a way of consolidating his position at home. That July he ordered all Soviet military advisers out of the country and began planning for a campaign to recapture the Sinai peninsula, which Israel had occupied during the Arab - Israel War of 1967. While preparing to attack Israel's forces in the Sinai, Sadat effected a rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and created a working alliance with Syria as well, which enabled the Egyptian armed forces to strike across the Suez Canal on 6 October 1973. Although the attack was, in the end, repelled and Israeli units drove deep into the Egyptian delta before a cease-fire was arranged on 23 October, the comparatively good showing made by Egyptian troops led Sadat to claim the honorific "the hero of the crossing" and invite U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to mediate an interim settlement with Israel. Two disengagement agreements negotiated under U.S. auspices in January 1974 and September 1975 laid the foundation for Sadat's 9 November 1977 surprise announcement that he intended to travel to Jerusalem to initiate peace talks with Israel's government. Ten days later he addressed the Israeli parliament, smashing what he called "the psychological barrier" to peace between the two states. He then took part in a series of face-to-face negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin that culminated in the September 1978 Camp David Accords, which in turn led to the signing of an Egyptian - Israeli peace treaty in March 1979. This document resulted in the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Sinai in April 1982.

Sadat's unprecedented trip to Jerusalem was prompted by internal as well as external developments. In June 1974, the regime implemented an economic program designed to attract greater amounts of foreign investment into the country and provide new opportunities for local entrepreneurs, which came to be known as the policy of infitah (opening up). At the same time, competing factions within the ASU were encouraged to organize into separate political groupings (manabir), which by 1976 had become established as autonomous parties; the largest of these, the centrist National Democratic Party, continued to dominate the national assembly, while smaller rightist and leftist parties, the Social Democratic Party and the National Progressive Unionist Party, played the role of loyal opposition to the government. It was in these circumstances at the beginning of 1977 that the regime agreed to implement austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund and cut state subsidies on a wide range of basic foodstuffs and other necessities. This decision sparked large-scale riots in Cairo, Alexandria, and other Egyptian cities, forcing the government to restore the subsidies. President Sadat immediately castigated the rioters as "thieves" and ordered wholesale revisions to the Parties Law of 1977 that substantially limited the activities in which political associations were permitted to engage. The subsequent electoral successes of the main prerevolutionary party, the Wafd, added to Sadat's displeasure with the new political order he had helped to create. In June 1978, he ordered the arrest of the Wafd's leadership; he supervised the de facto rigging of parliamentary elections a year later; and in September 1981, he issued new regulations that led to the imprisonment of virtually all opposition activists.

These measures added fuel to the smoldering popular discontent generated by Egypt's persistent economic difficulties and Sadat's unilateral peace treaty with Israel. The Camp David Accords failed to bring appreciably greater levels of U.S. assistance into the country, even as the policies associated with infitah steadily increased the gap between rich and poor. They did little better in persuading Israel to proceed with the direct talks concerning the future of the occupied territories that were envisaged as the second stage of the agreement. Furthermore, the very image affected by Sadat to win popular support in the United States - that of a benevolent patriarch, complete with sweater and pipe - grated on dissidents at home. Militant Islamist cells proliferated in poor neighborhoods, in the provinces of Upper Egypt and, most notably, within the armed forces. Members of one of these cells, al-Jihad, assassinated Sadat on 6 October 1981 as he reviewed a military parade commemorating the eighth anniversary of the attack across the Suez Canal. He was succeeded by his vice president, Husni Mubarak.

Bibliography

Baker, Raymond William. Sadat and After: Struggles for Egypt'sPolitical Soul. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Beattie, Kirk J. Egypt during the Sadat Years. New York: St. Martin's, 2000.

Cooper, Mark N. The Transformation of Egypt. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.

Hirst, David, and Beeson, Irene. Sadat. London: Faber and Faber, 1981.

Sadat, Anwar El-. In Search of Identity: An Autobiography. New York: Harper and Row, 1978.

Waterbury, John. The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The PoliticalEconomy of Two Regimes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.

— FRED H. LAWSON

An Egyptian political leader of the twentieth century. He succeeded Gamal Abdel Nasser as president of Egypt on Nasser's death in 1970. In a bold effort to bring peace to the Middle East, he visited Israel in 1977 and signed a peace agreement with that country in 1979. He was assassinated in Egypt in 1981. (See Arab-Israeli conflict.)

Quotes:

"Most people seek after what they do not possess and are enslaved by the very things they want to acquire."

"Sadat" redirects here. For the Indian town in district Ghazipur, see Sadat, Uttar Pradesh.

Muhammad Anwar al Sadat محمد أنورالسادات
3rd President of Egypt 2nd President of the United Arab Republic
In office 15 October 1970 – 6 October 1981
Preceded by	Gamal Abdel Nasser
Succeeded by	Sufi Abu Taleb (Acting)[1]
Born	25 December 1918(1918-12-25) Mit Abu al-Kum, Egypt
Died	6 October 1981 (aged 62) Cairo, Egypt
Nationality	Egyptian
Political party	Arab Socialist Union (until 1977) National Democratic Party (from 1977)
Spouse(s)	1) Ehsan Madi 2) Jehan Sadat
Religion	Islam

Muhammad Anwar Al Sadat, or Anwar El Sadat (Arabic: محمد أنور السادات‎, Muḥammad Anwar as-Sādāt) (25 December 1918 - 6 October 1981), was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination on 6 October 1981. He was a senior member of the Free Officers group that overthrew the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom he succeeded as President in 1970.

In his eleven years as president he changed Egypt's direction, departing from some of the economic and political principles of Nasserism by reinstituting the multi-party system and launching the Infitah. His leadership in the October War of 1973 and the regaining of Sinai made him an Egyptian hero. His visit to Israel and the eventual Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty won him the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award posthumously,^[2] but was an act enormously unpopular with the Arab world and Islamists, and resulted in Egypt being expelled from the Arab League.

Contents 1 Early life 2 During Nasser's presidency 3 Presidency 4 The Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty 5 Sadat's relationship with the Shah of Iran 6 Unpopularity and conspiracy theories 7 Assassination and aftermath 8 Family 9 Media portrayals of Anwar Sadat 10 Quotes 11 Bibliography 12 Further reading 13 Notes 14 External links

Early life

Anwar El Sadat was born on 25 December 1918 in Mit Abu al-Kum, al-Minufiyah, Egypt to a poor family, one of 13 brothers and sisters. His father was Egyptian, and his mother was Sudanese.^[3] He spent his early childhood under the care of his grandmother, who told him stories revolving around resistance to the British occupation and drawing on contemporary history. During Sadat’s childhood, he admired and was influenced greatly by four individuals. The first of his childhood heroes was Zahran, the alleged hero of Denshway, who resisted the British in a farmer protest. According to the story, a British soldier is killed. Zahran was the first Egyptian hanged in retribution for the soldier's death. Stories like the Ballad of Zahran introduced Sadat to Egyptian nationalism, a value he held throughout his life. The second individual was Kemal Ataturk who was leader of the modern Turkey. Sadat admired his ability to overthrow the colonial influence and his many social reforms. He also idolized Mahatma Gandhi and his belief of nonviolence when facing injustice. As Egypt was under the influence and colonialist exploitation of Great Britain, Sadat was fascinated by Hitler’s Nazi German army for their quick ability to become a strategic threat to Egypt's former colonial power.^[4] He graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo in 1938 and was appointed in the Signal Corps. He entered the army as a second lieutenant and was posted in Sudan (Egypt and Sudan were one country at the time). There, he met Gamal Abdel Nasser, and along with several other junior officers they formed the secret Free Officers Movement committed to freeing Egypt from British domination and royal corruption.

During the Second World War he was imprisoned by the British for his efforts to obtain help from the Axis Powers in expelling the occupying British forces. Along with his fellow Free Officers, Sadat participated in the military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 which overthrew the King Farouk I on July 23 of that year. After the revolution, he was assigned to take over the radio networks to announce the news of the revolution to the Egyptian people.

In 1964, after holding many positions in the Egyptian government, he was chosen to be vice president by President Nasser. He served in that capacity until 1966, and again from 1969 to 1970.

During Nasser's presidency

During the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat was appointed Minister of State in 1954. In 1959, he assumed the position of Secretary to the National Union. Sadat was the President of the National Assembly (1960-1968) and then vice president and member of the Presidential Council in 1964. He was reappointed as vice president again in December 1969.

Presidency

Sadat with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, 1981

After Nasser's death in 1970, Sadat succeeded him as President, but it was widely considered that his presidency would be short-lived. Viewing him as having been little more than a puppet of the former President, Nasser's supporters in government settled on Sadat as someone they could easily manipulate. Nasser's supporters were well satisfied for six months until Sadat instituted The Corrective Revolution and purged Egypt of most of its other leaders and other elements of the Nasser era.

In 1971, 3 years into the Soviet-sponsored War of Attrition in the Suez Canal zone, Sadat endorsed in a letter the peace proposals of UN negotiator Gunnar Jarring which seemed to lead to a full peace with Israel on the basis of Israel's withdrawal to its pre-war borders. This peace initiative failed as neither the United States nor Israel accepted the terms as discussed then.

Sadat likely perceived that Israel's desire to negotiate was directly correlated to how much of a military threat they perceived from Egypt, which, after the Six-Day War of 1967, was at an all time low. Israel also viewed the most substantial part of the Egyptian threat as the presence of Soviet equipment and personnel (in the thousands at this time). It was for those reasons that Sadat expelled the Soviet military advisers from Egypt and proceeded to whip his army into shape for a renewed confrontation with Israel. During this time, Egypt was suffering greatly from economic problems caused by the Six Days War and the Soviet relationship also declined due to their unreliability and refusal of Sadat’s requests for more military support.^[4]

On 6 October 1973, in conjunction with Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Sadat launched the October War, also known as the Yom Kippur War, a surprise attack to recapture occupied Sinai. The Egyptian performance in the initial stages of the war (see The Crossing) astonished both Israel and the Arab World as Egyptian forces pressed approximately 15 km into the Sinai Peninsula beyond the Bar Lev Line. This line is popularly thought to have been an impregnable defensive chain. Indeed the Egyptian performance was highly praised by Jewish American military strategist Edward Luttwak in an article that appeared in the Jerusalem Post in the wake of the 2006 Lebanon War:

“

...hundreds of Israeli tanks were damaged or destroyed by brave Egyptian infantrymen with their hand-carried missiles and rockets....In 1973, after crossing the Suez Canal, Egyptian infantrymen by the thousands stood their ground unflinchingly against advancing 50-ton Israeli battle tanks, to attack them successfully with their puny hand-held weapons. They were in the open, flat desert, with none of the cover and protection that Hizbullah had in their fortified bunkers or in Lebanon's rugged terrain.... Later, within the few square miles of the so-called Chinese farm near the Suez Canal, the Israelis lost more soldiers fighting against the Egyptians in a single day and night than the 116 killed in a month of war in Lebanon - including the victims of vehicle accidents and friendly fire....Hizbullah certainly did not run away and did hold its ground, but its mediocrity is revealed by the casualties it inflicted, which were very few."[5]

”

As the war progressed, three divisions of the Israeli army (IDF) led by General Ariel Sharon had crossed the Suez Canal, trying to encircle first the Egyptian Second Army and when it failed, the Egyptian Third Army. Prompted by an agreement between the United States and Egypt's Soviet allies, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 338 on 22 October 1973, calling for an immediate ceasefire.^[6] Although agreed upon, the cease fire was immediately broken by Israel with full knowledge of the United States. The aim was to allow Israel enter negotiations from a stronger position by threatening to starve and eventually destroy the trapped Egyptian Army. The encirclement was completed on the 25 October three days after the cease fire was brokered.

The initial Egyptian and Syrian victories in the war restored popular morale throughout Egypt and the Arab World, and for many years after Sadat was known as the "hero of the Crossing". Israel recognized Egypt as a formidable foe, and Egypt's renewed political significance eventually led to regaining and reopening the Suez Canal through the peace process.

On 19 November 1977, Sadat became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem about his views on how to achieve a comprehensive peace to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which included the full implementation of UN Resolutions 242 and 338. He said during his visit that he hopes "that we can keep the momentum in Geneva, and may God guide the steps of Premier Begin and Knesset, because there is a great need for hard and drastic decision."^[7]

The Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin acknowledge applause during a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C., during which President Jimmy Carter announced the results of the Camp David Accords, 18 September 1978.

The Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty was signed by Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Washington, DC, United States, on 26 March 1979, following the Camp David Accords (1978), a series of meetings between Egypt and Israel facilitated by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Both Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the treaty. In his acceptance speech, Sadat referred to the long awaited peace desired by both Arabs and Israelis.

“Let us put an end to wars, let us reshape life on the solid basis of equity and truth. And it is this call, which reflected the will of the Egyptian people, of the great majority of the Arab and Israeli peoples, and indeed of millions of men, women, and children around the world that you are today honoring. And these hundreds of millions will judge to what extent every responsible leader in the Middle East has responded to the hopes of mankind”^[8]

The main features of the agreement were the mutual recognition of each country by the other, the cessation of the state of war that had existed since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the complete withdrawal by Israel of its armed forces and civilians from the rest of the Sinai Peninsula which Israel had captured during the 1967 Six-Day War. The agreement also provided for the free passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal and recognition of the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways. The agreement notably made Egypt the first Arab country to officially recognize Israel. The peace agreement between Egypt and Israel has remained in effect since the treaty was signed.

President Jimmy Carter shaking hands with Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty on the grounds of the White House.

The treaty, which gained wide support among Egyptians, was extremely unpopular in the Arab World and the wider Muslim World.^[9] His predecessor Nasser had made Egypt an icon of Arab nationalism, an ideology that appeared to be sidelined by an Egyptian orientation following the 1973 war (see Egypt). By signing the accords, many non-Egyptian Arabs believed Sadat had put Egypt's interests ahead of Arab unity, betraying Nasser's pan-Arabism, and destroyed the vision of a united "Arab front" and elimination of the "Zionist Entity". Sadat's shift towards a strategic relationship with the U.S. was also seen as a betrayal by many. In the United States his peace moves gained him popularity among some Evangelical circles. He was awarded the Prince of Peace Award by Pat Robertson.^[10]

In 1979 the Arab League expelled Egypt in the wake of the Egyptian–Israel peace agreement, and the League moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. It was not until 1989 that the League re-admitted Egypt as a member, and returned its headquarters to Cairo. Many believed that only a threat of force would make Israel negotiate over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Camp David accords removed the possibility of Egypt, the major Arab military power, from providing such a threat. As part of the peace deal Israel withdrew from the Sinai peninsula in phases, returning the entire area to Egypt on 25 April 1982.

Sadat's relationship with the Shah of Iran

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran

Before the Islamic revolution of Iran in 1979, the relationship between Tehran and Cairo was so friendly that the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, called Sadat his "dear brother". The Shah's first wife was Queen Fawzia Bint Fuad(Fawzia Shirin) of Egypt. She was the eldest daughter of Sultan Fuad I of Egypt and Sudan (later King Fuad I), and his second wife, Nazli Sabri. The Shah of Iran spent the last days of his life near his "dear brother" in Egypt when he was in exile. When the Shah died, Sadat ordered to bury his dead body in Al-Rifa'i Mosque and asked the Egyptians to come to his funeral to respect his dear friend. It is believed^[who?] this is the most important reason why Iranians regard Sadat highly^{[citation needed]}. Al-Rifa'i Mosque is the resting place of Khushyar Hanim and her son Isma'il Pasha, as well as numerous other members of Egypt's royal family. ^[11]

Unpopularity and conspiracy theories

The last years of Sadat's reign were marked by turmoil and there were several allegations of corruption against him and his family. In January 1977, a series of 'Bread Riots' protested Sadat's economic liberalization and specifically a government decree lifting price controls on basic necessities like bread. Dozens of nightclubs on the famous Pyramids Street were sacked by Islamists. Following the riots the government reversed itself and recontrolled prices.^[12][13]

Sadat's Tomb, with a memorial of the Unknown Soldiers

Islamists were enraged by Sadat's Sinai treaty with Israel, particularly the radical Egyptian Islamic Jihad. According to interviews and information gathered by journalist Lawrence Wright, the group was recruiting military officers and accumulating weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch "a complete overthrow of the existing order" in Egypt. Chief strategist of El-Jihad was Aboud el-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose "plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing - he expected - a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country."^[14]

In February 1981, Egyptian authorities were alerted to El-Jihad's plan by the arrest of an operative carrying crucial information. In September, Sadat ordered a highly unpopular roundup of more than 1500 people, including many Jihad members,the Coptic Orthodox Pope, Bishop, and highly ranked clergy members, but also intellectuals and activists of all ideological stripes.^[15]

The round up missed a Jihad cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who succeeded in assassinating Anwar Sadat that October.^[16]

According to Tala'at Qasim, ex-head of the Gama'a Islamiyya interviewed in Middle East Report, it was not Islamic Jihad but the Islamic Group that organized the assassination and recruited the assassin (Islambouli). Members of the Group's 'Maglis el-Shura' ('Consultative Council') - headed by the famed 'blind shaykh' - were arrested two weeks before the killing, but they did not disclose the existing plans and Islambuli succeeded in assassinating Sadat.^[17]

Assassination and aftermath

On 6 October 1981, the month after the crackdown, Sadat was assassinated during the annual victory parade in Cairo. A fatwā approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric later convicted in the U.S. for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Sadat was protected by four layers of security, and the army parade should have been safe due to ammunition-seizure rules. However, the officers in charge of that procedure were on hajj to Mecca.^{[citation needed]}

As air force Mirage jets flew overhead, distracting the crowd, a troop truck halted before the presidential reviewing stand, and the lead assassin, lieutenant Khalid Islambouli strode forward. Sadat stood to receive his salute, whereupon, Islambouli lobbed three grenades at Sadat, only one of which exploded, and additional assassins rose from the truck, firing assault rifle rounds into the stands hitting Sadat. After Sadat fell to the ground, people threw chairs around him to protect him from the hail of bullets. The attack lasted about two minutes. Photographer Bill Foley captured one of the final pictures of Sadat alive. The photograph is titled "The Last Smile."^{[citation needed]} Eleven others were killed, including the Cuban ambassador, an Omani general and a Coptic Orthodox bishop, and 28 were wounded, including James Tully, the Irish Minister for Defence, and four U.S. military liaison officers. Security Forces were momentarily stunned but reacted within seconds. Two of the attackers were killed and the others were arrested by military police on-site. Sadat was rushed to a hospital, where eleven doctors operated on him, but was pronounced dead within hours. Islambouli was later tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed in April 1982. This was the first time in Egyptian history that the head of state had been assassinated by an Egyptian citizen.

In conjunction with the assassination, an insurrection was organized in Asyut in Upper Egypt. Rebels took control of the city for a few days and 68 policemen and soldiers were killed in the fighting. Government control was not restored until paratroopers from Cairo arrived. Most of the militants convicted of fighting received light sentences and served only three years in prison.^[18]

Sadat was succeeded by his vice president Hosni Mubarak, whose hand was injured during the attack. Sadat's funeral was attended by a record number of dignitaries from around the world, including a rare simultaneous attendance by three former U.S. presidents: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon. Sudan's President Gaafar Nimeiry was the only Arab head of state to attend the funeral. Only 3 of 24 states in the Arab League – Oman, Somalia and Sudan, sent representatives at all.^[19] Sadat was buried in the unknown soldier memorial in Cairo, across the street from the stand where he was assassinated.

Over three hundred Islamic radicals were indicted in the trial of assassin Khalid Islambouli, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, Omar Abdel-Rahman and Abd al-Hamid Kishk. The trial was covered by the international press and Zawahiri's knowledge of English made him the de facto spokesman for the defendants. Zawahiri was released from prison in 1984, before travelling to Afghanistan and forging a close relationship with Osama Bin Laden.

Despite these facts, the nephew of the late president, Talaat al-Sadat, claimed that the assassination was an international conspiracy. On 31 October 2006, he was sentenced to a year in prison for defaming Egypt's armed forces, less than a month after he gave the interview accusing Egyptian generals of masterminding his uncle's assassination. In an interview with a Saudi television channel, he also claimed both the United States and Israel were involved: "No one from the special personal protection group of the late president fired a single shot during the killing, and not one of them has been put on trial," he said.^[20]

Family

Sadat was married twice. He was first married to Ehsan Madi at age 22, and divorced her several years later, just 17 days after the birth of their third daughter, Camelia. He then married Jehan Raouf (later known as Jehan Sadat), who was only 15 years and 9 months at the time,^[21] on 29 May 1949. They had one son, Gamal, and three daughters: Lobna, Noha and Jehan (named after her mother). It was Gamal who represented his father when he was presented, posthumously, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan. Jehan Sadat was the 2001 recipient of the Pearl S. Buck Award. Anwar Sadat's autobiography, In Search of Identity, was published in the USA in 1977. Currently, Mrs. Sadat is an Associate Resident Scholar at the University of Maryland where The Anwar Sadat Chair for Development and Peace was established and fully endowed in 1997 to honor her husband's legacy. A nephew, Talaat Sadat, was imprisoned in October 2006 for accusing the Egyptian military of complicity in his uncle's assassination.^{[citation needed]}

Media portrayals of Anwar Sadat

In 1983, Sadat, a miniseries based on the life of Anwar Sadat, aired on U.S. television with Oscar-winning actor Louis Gossett, Jr. in the title role. The film was promptly banned by the Egyptian government, as were all other movies produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures due, over allegations of historical inaccuracies. Outside observers however, cited racist motivations on the part of the Egyptian government on account of Gosset Jr. being African American^[22] A civil lawsuit was also brought by Egypt's artists' and film unions against Columbia Pictures and the film's directors, producers and scriptwriters, but was eventually dismissed.^[23]

The main reason for the miniseries' poor reception in Egypt, however, was the fact that a black man, Gossett, was cast to play the role of the Egyptian president.^[22][24] According to one source, "that bothered race-conscious Egyptians and wouldn't have pleased [the deceased] Sadat."^[25]

The two-part series earned Gossett an Emmy nomination in the United States.

The first Egyptian depiction of Sadat's life came in 2001, when Ayam El-Sadat (English: Days of Sadat) was released in Egyptian cinemas. This movie, by contrast, was a major success in Egypt, and was hailed as Ahmad Zaki's greatest performance to date.^[26]

Quotes

• "Fear is, I believe, a most effective tool in destroying the soul of an individual - and the soul of a people."^[27]
• "Most people seek after what they do not possess and are enslaved by the very things they want to acquire."^[28]
• "Peace is much more precious than a piece of land... let there be no more wars."^[29]
• "Russians can give you arms but only the United States can give you a solution."^[30]
• "There can be hope only for a society which acts as one big family, not as many separate ones."^[31]
• "There is no happiness for people at the expense of other people."^[32]

Bibliography

• Sadat, Anwar (1954) (in Arabic). قصة الثورة كاملة (The Full Story of the Revolution). Cairo: Dar el-Hilal. OCLC 23485697. 
• Sadat, Anwar (1955) (in Arabic). صفحات مجهولة (Unknown Pages of the Revolution). Cairo: دار التحرير للطبع والنشر،. OCLC 10739895. 
• Sadat, Anwar (1957). Revolt on the Nile. New York: J. Day Co. OCLC 1226176. 
• Sadat, Anwar (1958). Son, This Is Your Uncle Gamal - Memoirs of Anwar el-Sadat. Beirut: Maktabat al-ʻIrfān. OCLC 27919901. 
• Sadat, Anwar (1978). In Search of Identity: An Autobiography. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0060137428. 

Further reading

• Eidelberg, Paul. Sadat’s Strategy, Dawn Books, 1979.
• Haykal, Muhammad Hasanayn. Autumn of Fury: The Assassination of Sadat, Wm Collins & Sons & Co, 1982.
• Meital, Yoram. Egypt’s Struggle for Peace: Continuity and Change, 1967-1977.
• Waterbury, John. The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes, Princeton University Press, Limited Edition, May 1983.
• Wright, Lawrence. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Knopf, 2006.

Notes

1. ^ "Former acting president of Egypt dies in Malaysia". Reuters Africa. 2008-02-21. http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN154552.html. Retrieved 2008-02-22. 
2. ^ The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Recipients List
3. ^ Finklestone, Joseph (1996). Anwar Sadat: Visionary Who Dared. Routledge. pp. 5–7,31. ISBN 0714634875. http://books.google.com/books?id=PoW4pO4q9VwC&pg=PA5&dq=black+sudanese+mother&ei=zCMuR96MIYWasgOtwcC8CQ&sig=VqQvreMabd_UadE0mlKJ7XpYex4. 
4. ^ ^{a b} "Anwar Sadat". http://www.ibiblio.org/sullivan/bios/Sadat-bio.html. 
5. ^ Jersualem Post. Misreading the Lebanon war. August 21, 2006.
6. ^ Mary Ann Fay (December 1990). "A Country Study". The Library of Congress. pp. Chapter 1, Egypt: The Aftermath of War: October 1973 War. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+eg0051). Retrieved 2008-02-13. 
7. ^ "Sadat Visits Israel: 1977 Year in Review."
8. ^ "Anwar Al-Sadat". http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1978/al-sadat-lecture.html. Retrieved 2009-01-22. 
9. ^ Vatikiotis, P.J. (1992). The History of Modern Egypt (Fourth Edition ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. pp. 443. ISBN 080184214X. 
10. ^ PatRobertson.com
11. ^ An Ideology of Martyrdom - TIME
12. ^ Olivier, Roy (1994). Failure of Political Islam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp. 56. ISBN 0674291409. 
13. ^ Weaver, Mary Ann (1999). Portrait of Egypt. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 25. ISBN 0374235422. 
14. ^ Wright, 2006, p.49
15. ^ 'Cracking Down', Time Magazine, September 14, 1981
16. ^ Wright, 2006, p.50
17. ^ For an account that uses this version of events, look at Middle East Report,'s January-March 1996 issue, specifically Hisham Mubarak's interview with . On pages 42-43 Qasim deals specifically with rumors of Jihad Group involvement in the assassination, and denies them entirely.
18. ^ Sageman, Marc, Understanding Terror Networks, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004, pp. 33-34
19. ^ Tuhoy, William (October 11, 1981). Most of Arab world ignores Sadat funeral. The Spokesman-Review.
20. ^ Sadat nephew in court appearance. BBC News. October 18, 2006.
21. ^ Sadat, Jehan. Interview with Diane Rehm. "The Diane Rehm Show." National Public Radio. WAMU, Washington, DC. 2009-03-30.
22. ^ ^{a b} Benjamin P. Bowser, Racism and Anti-Racism in World Perspective (Sage Series on Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13), (Sage Publications, Inc: 1995), p.108
23. ^ Suit Over Film 'Sadat' Is Dismissed in Cairo
24. ^ Upset by 'Sadat,' Egypt Bars Columbia Films
25. ^ Walter M. Ulloth, Dana Brasch, The Press and the State: Sociohistorical and Contemporary Studies, (University Press of America: 1987), p.483
26. ^ Adel Darwish (2005-03-31). "Ahmed Zaki: 'Black Tiger' of Egyptian film". The Middle East Internet News Network. http://www.mideastnews.com/Zakiobit.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-13. 
27. ^ Anwar el-Sadat quotes. Thinkexist.com.
28. ^ Anwar el-Sadat quotes. Thinkexist.com.
29. ^ Anwar el-Sadat quotes. Thinkexist.com.
30. ^ Simpson, James (1988). Simpson's contemporary quotations. Houghton Mifflin. p. 14. ISBN 978-0395430859.
31. ^ Cochran, Judith (2008). Educational Roots of Political Crisis in Egypt. Lexington Books. p. 76. ISBN 978-0739118986.
32. ^ Inc Icon Group International (2008). Happiness: Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases. ICON Group International, Inc. p. 18. ISBN 978-0546653595.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Anwar Sadat

• Official website (Arabic) (English)
• محمد انور السادات , الصفحه الرئيسية (Arabic)
• Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Front Page
• El-Sadat.info
• The University of Maryland
• Another video of Sadat's assassination
• Al Jazeera Video detailed coverage of the cause of Sadat's Assassination (Arabic)
• Free Egyptians Point of View About Sadat's Assassination (Arabic) (English)
• Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom - March 26, 1984

Political offices
Preceded by Abdul Latif El-Bughadi	President of the People's Assembly of Egypt 1960 – 1968	Succeeded by Dr. Mohamed Labib Skokeir
Preceded by Gamal Abdel Nasser	President of Egypt 1970 – 1981	Succeeded by Sufi Abu Taleb acting
Preceded by Aziz Sedki	Prime Minister of Egypt 1973 – 1974	Succeeded by Abdelaziz Muhammad Hejazi
Preceded by Mustafa Khalil	Prime Minister of Egypt 1980 – 1981	Succeeded by Hosni Mubarak
Party political offices
Preceded by None	Chairman of the National Democratic Party 1978 – 1981	Succeeded by Hosni Mubarak

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v • d • e Nobel Peace Prize laureates Betty Williams / Mairead Corrigan (1976) · Amnesty International (1977) · Anwar El Sadat / Menachem Begin (1978) · Mother Teresa (1979) · Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (1980) · United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1981) · Alva Myrdal / Alfonso García Robles (1982) · Lech Wałęsa (1983) · Desmond Tutu (1984) · International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (1985) · Elie Wiesel (1986) · Óscar Arias (1987) · UN Peacekeeping Forces (1988) · Tenzin Gyatso (14th Dalai Lama) (1989) · Mikhail Gorbachev (1990) · Aung San Suu Kyi (1991) · Rigoberta Menchú (1992) · Nelson Mandela / F.W. de Klerk (1993) · Yasser Arafat / Shimon Peres / Yitzhak Rabin (1994) · Pugwash Conferences / Joseph Rotblat (1995) · Carlos Belo / José Ramos-Horta (1996) · International Campaign to Ban Landmines / Jody Williams (1997) · John Hume / David Trimble (1998) · Médecins Sans Frontières (1999) · Kim Dae-jung (2000) Complete roster · 1901–1925 · 1926–1950 · 1951–1975 · 1976–2000 · 2001–present

v • d • e Time Persons of the Year Jimmy Carter (1976) · Anwar Sadat (1977) · Deng Xiaoping (1978) · Ayatollah Khomeini (1979) · Ronald Reagan (1980) · Lech Wałęsa (1981) · The Computer (1982) · Ronald Reagan / Yuri Andropov (1983) · Peter Ueberroth (1984) · Deng Xiaoping (1985) · Corazon Aquino (1986) · Mikhail Gorbachev (1987) · The Endangered Earth (1988) · Mikhail Gorbachev (1989) · George H. W. Bush (1990) · Ted Turner (1991) · Bill Clinton (1992) · “The Peacemakers”: Yasser Arafat / F.W. de Klerk / Nelson Mandela / Yitzhak Rabin (1993) · Pope John Paul II (1994) · Newt Gingrich (1995) · David Ho (1996) · Andrew Grove (1997) · Bill Clinton / Kenneth Starr (1998) · Jeffrey P. Bezos (1999) · George W. Bush (2000) Complete roster · 1927–1950 · 1951–1975 · 1976–2000 · 2001–present

v • d • e Speakers of the Parliament of Syria since 1919 al-Atassi* • Muayyad • al-Atassi • al-Khoury • al-Khoury • al-Jabiri • al-Khoury • al-Khoury • Kikhia • al-Dawalibi • al-Kudsi • al-Kuzbari • al-Kudsi • al-Hawrani • Sadat† • Ghazzi • al-Atrash • al-Khatib • al-Yusufi • al-Halabi • al-Halabi • Hadid • Zuabi • Zuabi • Kaddoura • Kaddoura • Kaddoura • Kaddoura • al-Otari • al-Abrash • al-Abrash *president of the Syrian National Congress     †within the UAR

Persondata
NAME	Sadat, Anwar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Sadat, Muhammad Anwar al- (full name); محمد أنورالسادات (Arabic)
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Egyptian president
DATE OF BIRTH	25 December 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH	Mit Abu Al-Kum, Al-Minufiyah, Egypt
DATE OF DEATH	6 October 1981
PLACE OF DEATH	Cairo, Egypt

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