Jihan Sadat

The Early Days

Other spellings:

Jehan Sadat, Jihan elSadat, Jihan Al Sadat.

Born in 1933 as Jehan Safwat Raouf جيهان صفوت رؤوف before becoming the second wife of president Anwar Sadat and being known as (Jehan Sadat – جيهان السادات). She was born near Cairo, Egypt as the first girl and third child of an upper-middle class family of an Egyptian surgeon father (Safwat Raouf), and English mother (Gladys Cotterill). She was raised as a Moslem according to her father's wishes, but also attended a secondary Christian school for girls in Cairo.

As a teenage schoolgirl she was obsessed with Anwar Sadat as a local hero through following reports in the media about his heroic stories and his courage, loyalty, and determination in resisting the British occupation of Egypt. She heard a lot of stories about him from her cousin whom her husband was his colleague in resistance and later in prison.

She was still fifteen when during a visit to her cousin in Suez during the Holy Month of Ramadan that she first met her future husband, Anwar Sadat shortly after his release from prison, where he served two and a half years for resistance activities that helped in the evacuation of King Farouk. She and Sadat later married in May 29, 1949, after hesitation and objections from her parents to the idea of their daughter marrying a divorced, jobless revolutionary.

As the First Lady:

Over the course of 32 years, Jihan, was a supporting wife for her rising political man who would go on to become President of Egypt, and the mother of their three daughters and son. She later used her platform as the first lady of Egypt to touch the lives of millions inside her country, and served as a role model for women everywhere, she helped change the world’s image of Arab women during the 70s, while fulfilling her own yearning for volunteering, participation and non-governmental service to the unfortunate.

Non-Governmental Services

Jehan played a key role in reforming Egypt's civil rights laws during the late 70s. Often called “Jehan’s Laws” new statutes advanced by her granted women a variety of new rights, including those to alimony and custody of children in the event of divorce.

After visiting wounded soldiers at the Suez front during the Six-Day War in 1967, she founded al Wafa’ Wa Amal (Faith and Hope) Rehabilitation Center, which offers disabled war veterans medical and rehabilitation services and vocational training. The center, is supported by donations from around the world and now serves visually impaired children and has a world-wide known music and choir band.

She has also played crucial roles in the formation of the “Talla” Society, a cooperative in the Nile Delta region that assists local women in becoming self-sufficient; the Egyptian Society for Cancer Patients and the Egyptian Blood Bank; and S.O.S. Children’s Villages in Egypt, an organization that provides orphans new homes in a family environment.

And headed the Egyptian delegation to the UN International Women’s Conferences in Mexico City and Copenhagen. The founder of the Arab-African Women’s League. As an activist she has hosted and participated in numerous conferences throughout the world concerning women’s issues, children’s welfare, and peace in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America.

Education:

• She took her B.A., from Cairo University, in 1977;
• M.A., Cairo University, 1980;
• And later Ph.D., from Cairo University, 1986

The Recent years:

Jehan is a Senior fellow at the University of Maryland, College Park (where The Anwar Sadat Chair for Population, Development and Peace has also been endowed).

She also published an autobiography, [A Woman of Egypt], as well as poetry in Arabic, under a pseudonym, and is at work on a book about her life since 1981, the year her husband was assassinated.

Awards and Honors:

• Jehan is the recipient of several national and international awards for public service and humanitarian efforts for women and children.
• And the recipient of more than 20 honorary doctorate degrees from national and international colleges and universities around the world.
• In 2001 she was the winner of Pearl S. Buck Award

Former Positions:

• Egypt’s first lady between (1970–1981).
• First woman chair of the People’s Council of Munofeyya Provincial governate
• Visiting professor at American University in Washington, D.C.
• University of South Carolina, and Radford University.