Muhammad Anwar es-Sadat (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who was the third president of Egypt from 1970 until his assassination in 1981. A former member of the Free Officers movement, Sadat was vice president under Gamal Abdel Nasser on two occasions and assumed the office on Nasser's death in 1970.
In his 11 years as president, he changed Egypt's trajectory, departing from many political and economic tenets of Nasserism, reinstituting a multi-party system, and launching the Infitah economic policy. As President, he led Egypt in the October war of 1973 to regain Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967, making him a hero in Egypt and, for a time, the wider Arab world. Afterwards, he engaged in negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Camp David Accords and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty.
Although reaction to the treaty – which resulted in the return of Sinai to Egypt – was generally favorable among Egyptians, it was rejected by the country's Muslim Brotherhood and the left, which felt Sadat had abandoned efforts to ensure a State of Palestine. With the exception of Sudan, the Arab world and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) strongly opposed Sadat's efforts to make a separate peace with Israel without prior consultations with the Arab states. His refusal to reconcile with them over the Palestinian issue resulted in Egypt being suspended from the Arab League from 1979 to 1989. The peace treaty was also one of the primary factors that led to his assassination; on 6 October 1981, militants led by Khalid Al-Islambuli opened fire on Sadat with automatic rifles during the 6 October parade in Cairo, killing him.
Early life and revolutionary activities
Anwar Sadat was born on 25 December 1918 in Mit Abu El Kom, part of Monufia Governorate in what was then the Sultanate of Egypt, to a poor family. He had 14 siblings. One of his brothers, Atef Sadat, later became a pilot and was killed in action in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War. His mother, Sit Al-Berain, was born to an Egyptian mother and a Sudanese father. His father, Anwar Mohammed El Sadat, met Al-Berain while he was posted in Sudan as a medical officer, and returned with her to his hometown of El Kom. His father named him after Enver Pasha, who was lauded as the "Hero of Freedom" by the peoples of the Ottoman Empire for his role in the Young Turk Revolution.
He graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo, the capital of what was then the Kingdom of Egypt, in 1938 and was appointed to the Signal Corps. He entered the army as a second lieutenant and was posted to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (the Sudan being a condominium under joint British and Egyptian rule at the time). There, he met Gamal Abdel Nasser, and along with several other junior officers they formed the Free Officers, an organization committed to overthrowing British rule in Egypt and eliminating state corruption.
During World War II, Sadat, a member of the fascist and ultranationalist Young Egypt Party, collaborated with Nazi Germany in Egypt as part of Operation Salam. There were meetings and talk amongst some pro-Axis junior officers of a potential revolt, and Sadat later said that he'd wanted to make Egypt "a second Iraq". After the Abdeen Palace incident, Sadat furthered his plans for a coup, but Muslim Brotherhood leader Hassan al-Banna declined to support the plot. He then met with two German agents in Cairo to discuss his plan, but was arrested and imprisoned for much of the war. By the end of the conflict, Sadat had already met with the secret society that decided to assassinate Amin Osman, Minister of Finance in the Wafd Party government, and the head of the Egyptian-British Friendship Society, due to his strong sympathies towards the British. Osman was assassinated in January 1946. Following the assassination of Amin Osman, Sadat returned and was sent to prison.
While in Qarmidan prison, Sadat faced solitary confinement. However, despite being the first accused in the Hussein Tawfiq case, Sadat escaped without leaving behind any evidence of criminality. Salah Zulfikar, then a young police officer, at that time was the officer in charge in the prison. He believed in his heart of Sadat's heroism and that he played a patriotic role towards his country and that he was convicted and imprisoned because of his love for his country. Zulfikar brought with him food, newspapers and cigarettes and helped his family a lot in obtaining visitor permits to check on him. Anwar Sadat was active in many political movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the fascist Young Egypt Party, the pro-Axis and pro-Royalist Iron Guard of Egypt, and the secret military group called the Free Officers. Along with his fellow Free Officers, Sadat participated in the military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which overthrew King Farouk I on 23 July of that year. Sadat gave the first statement of the revolution over the radio to the Egyptian people.
During the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat was appointed minister of State in 1954. He was also appointed editor of the newly founded daily Al Gomhuria. In 1959, he assumed the position of secretary to the National Union. Sadat was the 2nd president of the National Assembly (1960–1968) and then Vice President of Egypt and member of the presidential council in 1964. He was reappointed as vice president again in December 1969.
Some of the major events of Sadat's presidency were his "Corrective Revolution" to consolidate power in 1971, the break with Egypt's long-time ally and aid-giver the USSR, the Yom Kippur War with Israel, the Camp David Accords and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty, the "opening up" (or Infitah) of Egypt's economy, and lastly his assassination in 1981.
Sadat succeeded Nasser as president after the latter's death in October 1970. Sadat's presidency was widely expected to 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 manipulate easily. Sadat surprised everyone with a series of astute political moves by which he was able to retain the presidency and emerge as a leader in his own right.
On 15 May 1971, Sadat announced his corrective revolution, purging the government, political and security establishments of the most ardent Nasserists. Sadat encouraged the emergence of an Islamist movement, which had been suppressed by Nasser. Believing Islamists to be socially conservative he gave them "considerable cultural and ideological autonomy" in exchange for political support.
In 1971, as part of the Jarring Mission, three years into the 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 Israel nor the United States of America accepted the terms as discussed then.
Shortly after taking office, Sadat shocked many Egyptians by dismissing and imprisoning two of the most powerful figures in the regime, Vice President Ali Sabri, who had close ties with Soviet officials, and Sharawi Gomaa, the Interior Minister, who controlled the secret police.
Sadat's rising popularity would accelerate after he cut back the powers of the hated secret police, expelled Soviet military from the country and reformed the Egyptian army for a renewed confrontation with Israel.
On 6 October 1973, in conjunction with Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Sadat launched the October War, also known as the Yom Kippur War (and less commonly as the Ramadan War), a surprise attack against the Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, and the Syrian Golan Heights in an attempt to retake these respective Egyptian and Syrian territories that had been occupied by Israel since the Six Day War six years earlier. The Egyptian and Syrian performance in the initial stages of the war astonished both Israel, and the Arab World. The most striking achievement (Operation Badr, also known as The Crossing) was the Egyptian military's advance approximately 15 km into the occupied Sinai Peninsula after penetrating and largely destroying the Bar Lev Line. This line was popularly thought to have been an impregnable defensive chain.