Anwar el sadat biography summary examples

Introduction

Anwar Sadat remains a controversial figure in the Middle East. Praised as a prophet and cursed as a traitor, neither his death in nor the passage of time have resolved the ongoing debate about the man and his legacy. There is not yet an authoritative biography of Sadat in either Arabic or English, although Sadat himself made several efforts during his career to define himself to the Egyptian public and the world community.(1)

Some of the controversy over Sadat arises from the fact that the future that Sadat predicted has not yet come to pass. Egypt's economy, while showing encouraging signs of life, has not yet produced prosperity for a large number of its citizens. Peace with Israel, although secure on the Egyptian border, has left the Palestinians with fewer fruits of peace than they and the Egyptians had hoped they would have. Many who have lived through the unfulfilled promises of Sadat's vision have continued to speak and act violently against his legacy.

For many, Sadat's legacy is a series of ongoing processes -- the Arab-Israeli peace process, Egyptian economic development, and political liberalization, among others -- and this surely has something to do with continuing debates over his legacy. Those with a stake in current issues speak about Sadat as a coded way to criticize current leaders and influence current developments. In Egypt in particular, debates purportedly over Sadat have served as cover for discussions about economic change, corruption, political repression, international politics, and negotiating strategy in the peace process.

The foregoing, however, is insufficient to explain the relative unease that historians and other students of the region have in finding a place for Sadat. The fact is that there remains a tension about Sadat, an inability to explain a man who appeared equally comfortable with peasants and presidents, a man who seemed at home with a feisty i

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Who Was Anwar el-Sadat?

Anwar el-Sadat was an Egyptian politician who served in the military before helping to overthrow his country's monarchy in the early s. He served as vice president and later became president in Though his country faced internal economic instability, Sadat earned the Nobel Peace Prize for entering into peace agreements with Israel. He was assassinated soon after on October 6, , in Cairo, Egypt, by Muslim extremists.

Early Years

Born into a family of 13 children on December 25, , in Mit Ab al-Kawm, Al-Minufiyyah governorate, Egypt, Sadat grew up in an Egypt under British control. In , the British created a military school in Egypt, and Sadat was among the first of its students. When he graduated from the academy, Sadat received a government post, where he met Gamal Abdel Nasser, who would one day rule Egypt. The pair bonded and formed a revolutionary group designed to overthrow British rule and expel the British from Egypt.

Imprisonment and Coups

Before the group could succeed, the British arrested and jailed Sadat in , but he escaped two years later. In , Sadat was again arrested, this time after being implicated in the assassination of pro-British minister Amin 'Uthman. Imprisoned until , when he was acquitted, upon release Sadat joined Nasser's Free Officers organization and was involved in the group's armed uprising against the Egyptian monarchy in Four years later, he supported Nasser's rise to the presidency.

Presidential Policies

Sadat held several high offices in Nasser's administration, eventually becoming vice president of Egypt (–, –). Nasser died on September 28, , and Sadat became acting president, winning the position for good in a nationwide vote on October 15,

Sadat immediately set about separating himself from Nasser in both domestic and foreign policies. Domestically, he initiated the open-door policy known as infitah (Arabic for "opening"), an economic program designed to attrac

President of Egypt from to

Muhammad Anwar es-Sadat (25 December &#;– 6 October ) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October Sadat was a senior member of the Free Officers who overthrew King Farouk I in the Egyptian Revolution of , and a close confidant of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, under whom he served as vice president twice and whom he succeeded as president in In , Sadat and Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, signed a peace treaty in cooperation with United States President Jimmy Carter, for which they were recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize.

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 Yom Kippur War of to regain Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied since the Six-Day War of , 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; this won him and Menachem Begin the Nobel Peace Prize, making Sadat the first Muslim Nobel laureate.

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 fr