Jehan Sadat

Jehan Al Sadat (Arabic: جيهان السادات), also spelled Jihan; birth name Jehan Safwat Raouf (Arabic: جيهان صفوت رؤوف) (born August 29, 1933) was the second wife of Anwar Sadat and served as first lady of Egypt from 1970 until Sadat's assassination in 1981.

The Early Days

She was born in Cairo, Egypt as the first girl and third child of an upper-middle-class family of an Egyptian surgeon father (Safwat Raouf), and English music teacher mother (Gladys Cotterill), her mother was the daughter of Charles Henry Cotterill, a Sheffield City police superintendent. She was raised as a Muslim according to her father's wishes, but also attended a secondary Christian school for girls in Cairo.

As a teenage schoolgirl she was intrigued 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, whose 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 eviction 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 jobless revolutionary.

As the First Lady

Over the course of 32 years, Jehan was a supporting wife for her rising political husband 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 1970s. 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 SOS Children's Villages in Egypt, an organization that provides orphans new homes in a family environment.

Further more she 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 Peace and Development has also been endowed).

She also published an autobiography, A Woman of Egypt (ISBN 0-7432-3708-0), 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 1993, she received the Community of Christ International Peace Award.
In 2001 she was the winner of Pearl S. Buck Award

Former Positions

Egypt's first lady from 1970 to 1981.
First woman chair of the People's Council of Munofeyya Provincial governorate
Visiting professor at American University in Washington, D.C.
University of South Carolina, and Radford University.

External links