Mohammed Anwar Sadat

Muhammad Anwar Muhammad al-Sadat (December 25, 1918 AD – October 6, 1981 AD) is the third president of the Arab Republic of Egypt, who ruled Egypt in the period between (September 28, 1970 (acting) October 17, 1970 (actually) to October 6, 1981).

Anwar Sadat was born in the village of Mit Abu al-Kom in the Menoufia Governorate in 1918 and graduated from the Military Academy in 1938. He joined the Free Officers Movement that staged the revolution against the rule of the country’s then king, Farouk I, in 1952, and has held several major positions in the state since then, such as the position of minister State in September 1954, and Speaker of the National Assembly from 7/21/1960 to 9/27/1961, and Speaker of the National Assembly for the second term from 3/29/1964 to 11/12/1968, as Gamal Abdel Nasser chose him as his deputy on December 19, 1969 Until his death on September 28, 1970.

Sadat was famous for his audacity, sophistication, and political shrewdness, which was evident in his elimination of his political opponents in what was known as the Correction Revolution. Sadat worked to prepare for the recovery of the Sinai Peninsula from Israeli control following the 1967 war, when the Egyptian army, during his reign, was able to defeat the Israeli army in the October War and cross the Suez Canal, and he was able to achieve control of the Sinai after long rounds of negotiations.

In 1978, Sadat won the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, following the signing of the peace treaty in the Camp David Accords, which caused opposition reactions within Egypt and the Arab countries, and many Islamists were imprisoned in what was called reservation procedures in September 1981 as He regretted removing the prisoners of Islamic groups from detention centers, which led to his assassination on October 6, 1981, during a military parade celebrating the victories of the October War, at the hands of the military wing of the Islamic Group in Egypt.
In 2012, President Mohamed Morsi was awarded the Nile Necklace and the Medal of Honor for his name in appreciation of his role in the October War. In 2018, the US Congress decided to award Sadat the Congressional Gold Medal for his centenary of birth, in recognition of his achievements and contributions to peace in the Middle East, and this decision was approved by US President Donald Trump.

His Upbringing

His mother is Sudanese from an Egyptian mother named Set El-Breen from the city of Dongola

His father married her while he was working with the British medical team in Sudan, but he lived and grew up in the village of Mit Abu al-Kum. Sadat indicated that the village did not cloud his mind, but it was his grandmother and his mother who charmed and controlled him, and they are the main reason for the formation of his personality. Sadat was proud to be in the company of his esteemed grandmother, that grandmother who used to stand to greet her when she was passing by despite her illiteracy, but she had extraordinary wisdom, so that families who had problems would go to her to take her advice in addition to her skill in providing prescriptions for patients.

Sadat mentioned that his grandmother and his mother used to tell him extraordinary stories before going to sleep. They were not traditional stories about the exploits of ancient wars and adventures, but rather about modern heroes and their struggle for national independence, such as the story of the poisoning of Mustafa Kamel by the British who wanted to put an end to the struggle against their occupation. for Egypt. Anwar al-Saghir did not know who Mustafa Kamel was, but he learned through repetition that the British are evil and poison people, but there was a popular story that affected him deeply, which is the story of Zahran, who was called the hero of Denshway, which is three miles away from Mitt Abu al-Kom.

The village paradise ended for Sadat with his father’s return from Sudan, where he lost his job there following the assassination of Lee Stack, and the consequent withdrawal of Egyptian forces from the region. After that, the family consisting of the father and his three wives and their children moved to a small house in Kobri al-Qobba in Cairo, and Sadat’s age at that time was about six years. His life in this small house was not comfortable, as the father’s income was very small. Finishing his high school studies in 1936. In the same year, Al-Nahhas Pasha had concluded with Britain the 1936 treaty, and according to this treaty, the Egyptian army was allowed to expand, and thus it became possible for him to join the Military College, where enrollment was limited to children of the upper class, and indeed he was enrolled in the Military Academy In 1937, these events pushed Sadat into politics.

His Life

He was born in the village of Mit Abul-Kom in the Menoufia Governorate on December 25, 1918, and received his first education in the village book at the hands of Sheikh Abdel Hamid Issa, then he moved to the Coptic Elementary School in Toukh Dalka and obtained an elementary certificate from it. In 1935 he joined the Military School to complete his postgraduate studies, and graduated from the Military Academy in 1938 as an officer with the rank of second lieutenant.
He was appointed in Manqabad southern Egypt. At the beginning of his life, he was influenced by a number of political and popular figures in Egypt and the world.

His First Marriage

His marriage was traditional, as he proposed to Mrs. Iqbal Afifi, who belonged to Turkish origins, and she was related to Khedive Abbas, and her family owned some land in the village of Mit Abu al-Kom and Qalyubia as well, and this is what made the Iqbal family oppose Anwar Sadat’s marriage to her, but after When Sadat completed his studies at the Military Academy, the situation changed, and the marriage took place, which lasted for nine years, during which they had three daughters, Ruqia, Rawya, and Camelia.
his second marriage
He married for the second time, Mrs. Jihan Raouf Safwat in 1949, from whom he had 3 daughters and a son, Lubna, Noha, Jihan and Jamal.

The beginning of his political career

The British occupation of Egypt occupied the mind of Sadat, as he felt aversion that Egypt was governed by a non-Egyptian royal family. He held meetings with the officers in his room of his military unit in Manqabad in 1938, and his focus in his conversations was on the British military mission and its absolute powers, as well as on the senior Egyptian army officers and their blind adherence to what the British commanded. This room also witnessed the first meeting between Sadat and both Gamal Abdel Nasser and Khaled Mohieldin, and despite Sadat’s admiration for Gandhi, he was not his ideal. Rather, he was the Turkish political warrior, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, as Sadat felt that force alone could expel the British from Egypt and change the corrupt regime and deal with Corrupt politicians, as Atatürk did in uprooting the previous rulers of Turkey.
Sadat in 1953

But how can this be achieved when he was in his unit in Manqbad, and in early 1939 the command chose him to have a signal squad in the Signal School in Maadi, along with another group, including Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had no hope of working with the signal weapon that was newly established in the army, as it was one of the most important weapons of the army At that time, there must be a great medium for him to enter, and at the end of the band he had to deliver a speech on behalf of his colleagues, which he prepared, and it was a purposeful and meaningful speech in addition to his eloquence and his ability to deliver it without much use of written paper, and that is what caught the attention of Prince Alai Iskandar Fahmy Abu Al-Saad And immediately after that he was transferred to work with the signal weapon, and that transfer was the opportunity that Sadat was waiting for to expand his circle of activity through the ease of his contact with all the army’s weapons. Communications were initially limited to close associates of arms and age, but soon the circle of communications expanded after the victories. The Germans »under Hitler in 39, 40, 41 and the defeats of the British.

In the meantime, Sadat was transferred as a signal officer to Marsa Matruh. The British at that time wanted the Egyptian army to support them in their battle against the Germans, but the Egyptian people revolted for that, forcing Ali Maher, the prime minister at the time, to announce that Egypt would be spared the scourge of war, as he acknowledged. That parliament was unanimous, and accordingly orders were issued to disembark the Egyptian officers from Marsa Matruh, and thus the British alone would undertake the defense, and that angered them, so they asked all the Egyptian officers to surrender their weapons before they withdrew from their positions. The officers revolted, and their consensus was not to give up their weapons at all, even if that led to fighting with the British, because such an act was considered a military insult, and that made the English army respond to the Egyptian officers.

In the summer of 1941, Sadat made his first attempt at revolution in Egypt, and it seemed naive to the revolution’s plan, as it was announced, as it stipulated that all the forces withdrawing from Marsa Matruh would meet at the Mena House Hotel near the pyramids, and actually Sadat’s special group arrived at the hotel and waited for the others to catch up with them, Where it was decided that everyone would walk to Cairo to remove the British and their collaborators from the Egyptians, and after the Sadat group waited in vain, Sadat saw that the assembly process was a failure and the revolution did not succeed.

Arrest Him

The days of Sadat’s freedom were numbered, as the British narrowed their grip on Egypt, and therefore on every Egyptian fighter fighting for the freedom of his country, such as Anwar Sadat. Against the British” in order to exploit that device to serve the cause of the struggle for the freedom of Egypt, and in prison Sadat tried to search for the meanings of his life in a deeper way, and after he had spent two years (1942: 1944) in prison he escaped from it until September 1945 when the martial law was abolished, and thus ended He was arrested according to the law, and during this period of his escape he changed his features and called himself Hajj Muhammad, and he worked successively on a vehicle belonging to his close friend Hassan Ezzat, and with the end of the war and the end of the Military Status Law in 1945, Sadat returned to his normal way of life, as he returned to his home and family After spending three years homeless.

Sadat with President Mohamed Naguib

In 1941, he entered prison for the first time during his military service, following his repeated meetings with Aziz Pasha Al-Masry, who asked him to help him escape to Iraq, after which the Military Intelligence asked him to cut off his relationship with Al-Masry due to his pivotal tendencies, but he did not heed this warning, and he entered the prison for foreigners in February. In 1942. He was released from the prison for foreigners at a time when the operations of World War II were at their most severe, and in the hope of expelling the British from Egypt, he intensified his contacts with some German officers who had landed in Egypt secretly, so the British discovered this connection with the Germans, so he entered the prison for the second time in 1943. But he managed He escaped from the prison, and his friend Hassan Ezzat accompanied him on the escape journey. During his escape from prison, he worked as a porter on a transport vehicle under the assumed name of Hajj Muhammad. At the end of 1944 he moved to the town of Abu Kabir in Sharkia to work as an actor in the irrigation canal project. In 1945, with the end of World War II, martial law fell, and with the fall of martial law, he returned to his home after three years of persecution and deprivation.

Sadat and his aides were determined to kill Amin Othman Pasha, the Minister of Finance in the Council of Ministers of Nahhas Pasha, because he was a friend of Britain and was one of the strongest advocates for the British forces to remain in Egypt, and he had a famous saying explaining the relationship between Egypt and Britain, describing it as a “Catholic marriage” between Egypt And Britain does not have a divorce, and the operation was completed successfully on the sixth of January 1946 at the hands of Hussein Tawfiq, and Anwar Sadat was imprisoned in the prison of foreigners without formal accusation against him, and in cell 54 Sadat learned patience and the ability to deceive, as this cell was characterized as dirty and did not contain Nothing but an inhumane blanket, and Sadat’s experiences in prisons are considered the biggest motive for his tendency to destroy all these prisons after he came to power in 1975 and said at the time: “Any such prison must be destroyed and replaced with another that is suitable for the human being.”

During that period, he had met with the secret society that decided to assassinate Amin Othman, Minister of Finance in the Wafd government and head of the Egyptian-British Friendship Association, due to his strong sympathy for the British. After the assassination of Amin Othman, he returned again and finally to prison. In Qarmidan prison, he faced the most difficult ordeals of imprisonment by being held in solitary confinement, but the first accused in the case of Hussein Tawfiq escaped. and after there is no Criminality evidence all the charges fall and the suspected went free. The young officer Salah Zulfiqar at that time was the officer in charge in the prison, and he believed in Sadat’s heroism and that he played a patriotic role towards his country even though he was imprisoned. Zulfiqar was the officer assigned to guard him and the rest of the defendants in the case, but he helped them and treated them well because they were prisoners. Politicians and his conviction that they were imprisoned because of their love for their country. Zulfiqar used to bring food, newspapers, and cigarettes to Sadat, and helped his family a lot in obtaining visitor permits to check on him.
Sadat’s imprisonment in Cell 54 of Cairo Central Prison also led him to think about his personal life and his political and religious beliefs. In his prison, Sadat built a spiritual relationship with his Lord. Because he saw that turning to God is the best thing because God Almighty will never let him down. While he was in prison, the Palestine War broke out in the middle of 1948, which affected him greatly, as he felt completely helpless while he was between four walls when he learned of the sure victory of the Arabs had it not been for the armistice contract concluded by King Abdullah of Jordan at that time, and by which he saved the neck of Israel, in agreement with The British, and in August 1948 Sadat was acquitted of the killing of Amin Othman and was released. After that, Sadat resided in Helwan Pension in order to be able to treat his stomach from the effects of the prison with Helwan mineral water.

Free Officers Organization

After his release from prison, he worked as a newspaper reviewer for Al-Musawwar magazine until December 1948. After that, he worked as a freelancer with his friend Hassan Ezzat. In 1950, he returned to his work in the army with the help of his old colleague, Dr. Youssef Rashad, the physician of King Farouk.

In 1951, the founding body of the secret organization in the army was formed, which was later known as the Free Officers Organization, and he joined it. Events developed in Egypt very quickly between 1951-1952, and the Wafd government canceled the 1936 treaty, after which the famous Cairo fire broke out in January 1952, and the king dismissed the last copper ministry.

In the spring of 1952, the leadership of the Free Officers Organization prepared for the revolution, and on July 21, Gamal Abdel Nasser sent him to his unit headquarters in Arish, asking him to come to Cairo to participate in the army’s revolution against the king and the British. So he contributed to the revolution, and broadcasted with his voice the statement of the revolution. He was entrusted with the task of carrying the abdication document to King Farouk.

After The Revolution

In 1953, the Revolutionary Command Council established Al-Jumhuriya newspaper and assigned him the editorship of this newspaper. In 1954, with the first ministerial formation of the revolutionary government, he assumed the position of Minister of State in September 1954. He was a member of the Supreme Council of the Editorial Board. He also held the position of Secretary General of the World Islamic Conference in Beirut in 1955.

He was elected as a member of the National Assembly representing the Tala constituency for three terms starting in 1957. In 1960 he was elected Speaker of the National Assembly for the period from July 21, 1960 to September 27, 1961. He was also elected Speaker of the National Assembly for the second term, from March 29, 1964 to November 12, 1968. In 1961, he was appointed Chairman of the Afro-Asian Solidarity Council.

In 1969, Gamal Abdel Nasser chose him as his deputy, and he remained in the position until September 28, 1970.

Presidency of Egypt

After the death of President Gamal Abdel Nasser on September 28, 1970, and because he holds the position of Vice President, he replaced him as President of the Republic. On May 15, 1971, he made a decisive decision to eliminate the centers of power in Egypt, which was known as the Correction Revolution, and in the same year he issued a new constitution for Egypt.

In 1972, he dispensed with nearly 17,000 Russian experts in one week, and it was not a strategic mistake and did not cost Egypt much, as the Soviets were a great burden on the Egyptian army, and they were veterans of the Soviet military and retired, and they had no actual military role during the war. Absolute attrition, and the Soviet pilots, despite their mission to defend the skies of Egypt from Beni Suef Airport, had failed to fully achieve the mission, and the evidence was their loss of 6 Soviet (Mig-21) aircraft led by Soviet pilots in the first and last air clash that occurred between them and Israeli planes, and the fact that many know that Sadat’s abandonment was one of the most important steps of the October War, as Sadat wanted not to attribute the victory to the Soviets.
Also, one of the most important reasons that made him take this step is that the Soviet Union wanted to provide Egypt with weapons, on the condition that they would not be used without his order. Where Sadat answered them with the word: “(Sorry) I do not accept imposing a decision on Egypt except with my decision and the decision of the Egyptian people.” Also, these Russian experts were already obstructing Egyptian military operations during the War of Attrition, and a number of them were already discovered spying on behalf of Israel, and the Egyptian officers and soldiers did not talk to them about any details about war operations or even training, as the presence of these experts was just a symbol of support Soviet and political game no more.

He made a fateful decision for Egypt, which is the war against Israel that began on October 6, 1973, when the army was able to break the Bar Lev Line and cross the Suez Canal, leading Egypt to its first military victory over Israel.

And he decided in 1974 to draw new features for the renaissance of Egypt after the war, by opening it up to the world, so the decision was the economic openness.

One of the most important actions he undertook was the restoration of democratic life that was heralded by the July 23 revolution and was unable to implement it, as his decision in 1976 was to return to partisan life, and as a result, political platforms appeared, and from the mercy of this experience, the first political party, the National Democratic Party, emerged as the first A party after the July Revolution, which is the party he founded and headed, and its name was initially the Misr Party, then other parties followed after it, the New Wafd Party, the Progressive Unionist Gathering Party, and other parties.

{Bread Intifada}: It is popular demonstrations and riots against the high price, which took place on the 18th and 19th of January 1977 in several Egyptian cities, rejecting a draft budget that raises prices for many basic materials, where Dr. Abdel Moneim Al-Qaysouni, Deputy Prime Minister for Financial and Economic Affairs, delivered a speech Before the People’s Assembly on January 17, 1977 regarding the draft budget for that year, in which he announced austerity measures to reduce the deficit, linking this to the need to agree with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to procure the necessary additional financial resources. The reaction of the street to the increases was that people took to the streets until the government responded and backed down from the price increase. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat called it the “thieves’ revolution” and the official media came out talking about “a communist plot to cause confusion and unrest in Egypt and overthrow the regime.” A large number of leftist political activists were arrested before the court issued its verdict to acquit them.

His Last Days

By the fall of 1981, the government launched a massive campaign of arrests, including Islamic organizations, Coptic Church officials, writers, journalists, leftist and liberal thinkers, and the number of detainees in Egyptian prisons reached 1,536, following signs of strife and popular unrest rejecting peace with Israel and the state’s economic policies.

Assassinate Him

On October 6, 1981 (31 days after the arrest warrants were announced), he was assassinated in a military parade that was taking place on the occasion of the anniversary of the October War, and he assassinated Khaled al-Islambouli, Hussein Abbas, Atta Tayel, and Abdel Hamid Abdel Salam, who belonged to the Islamic Jihad Organization, which was strongly opposed to the peace agreement with Israel, where they shot President Sadat, wounding him with a bullet in his neck, a bullet in his chest, and a bullet in his heart. The assassination of Sadat came a few months after the killing of Field Marshal Ahmed Badawi and some military leaders in a very mysterious helicopter crash, which opened the door to suspicions about the existence of a conspiracy.
He was succeeded by former Vice President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak in the presidency.