Anwar Sadat

Mohammed Anwar al-Sādāt (Arabic: محمد أنورالسادات, Romanized: Muḥammad Anwar al-Sādāt; December 25, 1918 – October 6, 1981), the third president of Egypt. Anwar Sadat was born on December 25, 1918 in Mit Abu Elkom, in the Memphia Governorate of the then Sultanate of Egypt. His family was poor, but he entered the Egyptian Military Academy through his own efforts and joined the Free Officers Movement led by Gamal Abdel Nasser and became his close friend. During the 1952 Egyptian Revolution, Sadat and Nasser jointly overthrew King Farouk I, established a republican regime, and served as vice president twice during Nasser's term. After Nasser's death in 1970, he succeeded him as president. In 1978, Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed a peace treaty with the mediation of US President Jimmy Carter, for which they jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize. During his 11 years as president, he changed Egypt's development path, departing from many of the political and economic ideas of Nasserism, reestablishing a multi-party system, and proposing the Infita policy to attract foreign investment and promote economic growth. In terms of military affairs, he led Egypt to launch the Yom Kippur War in 1973 to recapture the Sinai Peninsula that had been occupied by Israel since the Third Middle East War, making him a hero in Egypt and even the entire Arab world for a time. Thereafter, he launched negotiations with Israel, eventually reaching the Camp David Accords and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty. Although it reached a peace treaty with Israel, which boosted its support in Egypt, it was opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood, who believed that Sadat had given up on efforts to establish a Palestinian state. Except for Sudan, countries in the Arab world and the Palestine Liberation Organization strongly opposed Sadat's independent peace with Israel without prior consultation with other Arab countries. His refusal to compromise with other Arab states on the Palestinian issue led to Egypt's suspension from the Arab League from 1979 to 1989. At the same time, due to his strong anti-communist views, he was also opposed by Egypt's domestic left wing. On October 6, 1981, opposition military officers led by Khalid Islambouli and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad assassinated Sadat during a military parade in Cairo. He died on the spot.