Background
Sadat was born on December 25, 1918, in Monufia, Egypt. He lived with his grandmother while his father, a minor civil service clerk, was away in the Sudan with his Sudanese wife.
Top Egyptian leaders in Alexandria, 1968. From left to right: Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat, Ali Sabri and Hussein el-Shafei.
Sadat (left) shaking hands with Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, 1978.
Queen Farah Diba, President Anwar Sadat and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in Tehran in 1975.
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Sadat was born on December 25, 1918, in Monufia, Egypt. He lived with his grandmother while his father, a minor civil service clerk, was away in the Sudan with his Sudanese wife.
As a boy, Muhammad 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. He graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo in 1938.
During World War II he plotted to expel the British from Egypt with the help of the Germans. The British arrested and imprisoned him in 1942, but he escaped two years later. In 1946 Sadat was arrested after being implicated in the assassination of pro-British minister Amīn ʿUthmān; he was imprisoned until his acquittal in 1948. In 1950 he joined Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Free Officers organization; he participated in its armed coup against the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 and supported Nasser’s election to the presidency in 1956. Sadat held various high offices that led to his serving in the vice presidency (1964-66, 1969-70). He became acting president upon Nasser’s death, on September 28, 1970, and was elected president in a plebiscite on October 15.
After the war, Sadat began to work toward peace in the Middle East. He made a historic visit to Israel (November 19–20, 1977), during which he traveled to Jerusalem to place his plan for a peace settlement before the Israeli Knesset (parliament). This initiated a series of diplomatic efforts that Sadat continued despite strong opposition from most of the Arab world and the Soviet Union. U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter mediated the negotiations between Sadat and Begin that resulted in the Camp David Accords (September 17, 1978), a preliminary peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1978, and their continued political negotiations resulted in the signing on March 26, 1979, of a treaty of peace between Egypt and Israel - the first between the latter and any Arab country.
While Sadat’s popularity rose in the West, it fell dramatically in Egypt because of internal opposition to the treaty, a worsening economic crisis, and Sadat’s suppression of the resulting public dissent. In September 1981 he ordered a massive police strike against his opponents, jailing more than 1,500 people from across the political spectrum. The following month Sadat was assassinated by Muslim extremists during the Armed Forces Day military parade commemorating the Yom Kippur War.
Sadat’s domestic and foreign policies were partly a reaction against those of Nasser and reflected Sadat’s efforts to emerge from his predecessor’s shadow. One of Sadat’s most important domestic initiatives was the open-door policy known as infitāḥ (Arabic: “opening”), a program of dramatic economic change that included decentralization and diversification of the economy as well as efforts to attract trade and foreign investment. Sadat’s efforts to liberalize the economy came at significant cost, including high inflation and an uneven distribution of wealth, deepening inequality and leading to discontent that would later contribute to food riots in January 1977.
It was in foreign affairs that Sadat made his most dramatic efforts. Feeling that the Soviet Union gave him inadequate support in Egypt’s continuing confrontation with Israel, he expelled thousands of Soviet technicians and advisers from the country in 1972. In addition, Egyptian peace overtures toward Israel were initiated early in Sadat’s presidency, when he made known his willingness to reach a peaceful settlement if Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula (captured by that country in the Six-Day [June] War of 1967). Following the failure of this initiative, Sadat launched a military attack in coordination with Syria to retake the territory, sparking the Yom Kippur (October) War of 1973. The Egyptian army achieved a tactical surprise in its attack on the Israeli-held territory, and, though Israel successfully counterattacked, Sadat emerged from the war with greatly enhanced prestige as the first Arab leader to have actually retaken some territory from Israel.
Quotations:
"He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality."
"I believe that for peace a man may, even should, do everything in his power. Nothing in this world could rank higher than peace."
"I promise to crush Israel and return it to the humiliation and wretchedness of the Koran."
"If you don't have the capacity to change yourself and your own attitudes, then nothing around you can be changed."
"There can be hope only for a society which acts as one big family, not as many separate ones."
"I found that I faced a highly complex situation, and that I couldnt hope to change it until I had armed myself with the necessary psychological and intellectual capacity. My contemplation of life and human nature in that secluded place had taught me that he who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any process."
"Let there be no more war or bloodshed between Arabs and Israelis. Let there be no more suffering or denial of rights. Let there be no more despair or loss of faith."
"I do not care for socially recognizable success. I only value that success which I can feel within me, which satisfies me, and which basically stems from self-knowledge."
"Real success is success with self. It's not in having things, but in having mastery, having victory over self."
"If you don't have the power to change yourself, then nothing will change around you."
"Peace is more precious than a piece of land."
Muhammad was married to Ehsan Madi, but they divorced so he could marry Jehan Raouf in 1949. They had four children named Lubna, Noha, Gamal, and Jeha.