Sadat, (Muhammad) Anwar el- 1918-81
Egyptian soldier, politician and Nobel Prize winner

Anwar el-Sadat was born into an Egyptian-Sudanese family in the Tala district of Egypt. He joined the army and was commissioned in 1938. Imprisoned in 1942 for contacts with the Germans in World War II, he continued to work for the overthrow of the British-dominated monarchy, and in 1952 was one of the group of officers who carried out the coup deposing King Farouk I. He held various posts under Gamal Abd al-Nasser, being one of the four vice-presidents from 1964 to 1967, and sole vice-president in 1969-70 when the office was revived.

An ardent Egyptian nationalist and Muslim, he was editor of Al-Jumhuriya and Al-Tahrir in 1955-56, and held strong anti-Communist views. He became President of the United Arab Republic in 1970 after the death of Nasser, at a time when Egypt's main preoccupation was the confrontation with Israel. In March 1973 he temporarily assumed the post of Prime Minister, and proclaimed himself military Governor-General in the Arab-Israeli war that broke out in November of that year.

In 1974 a referendum endorsed his social and economic plan for the future of Egypt. In September 1974 he relinquished the premiership to Dr Hagazy, and from then sought diplomatic settlement of the conflict, meeting the Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin in Jerusalem in December 1977 and at Camp David at President Carter's invitation in September 1978. In the same year he and Begin were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the only Arab leader to sign a peace treaty with Israel, and was fiercely criticized by other Arab statesmen and hard-line Muslims. He failed to match his international success with an improvement in Egypt's own struggling economy, and he was suspected of harsh treatment of his political opponents. In 1981 he was assassinated by Muslim extremists while reviewing troops.

Bibliography: Sadat's autobiography, In Search of Identity, was published in 1978. See also R A Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics Under Sadat (1988); B K Narayan, Anwar el-Sadat: A Man with a Mission (1977).