Although reaction to the treaty – which resulted in the return of Sinai to Egypt – was generally favorable among Egyptians,[6] it was rejected by the country's Muslim Brotherhood and the left, which felt Sadat had abandoned efforts to ensure a State of Palestine.

Anwar Sadat was born on 25 December 1918 in Mit Abu El Kom, part of Monufia Governorate in what was then the Sultanate of Egypt, to a poor family, and he had 14 siblings.

[16][17][18] In Qarmidan prison, he faced the most difficult ordeals of imprisonment by being held in solitary confinement, but the first accused in the Hussein Tawfiq case, escaped, and after there is no criminality evidence all the charges fall and the suspected went free.

[19] Along with his fellow Free Officers, Sadat participated in the military coup that launched the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which overthrew King Farouk I on 23 July of that year.

Believing Islamists to be socially conservative he gave them "considerable cultural and ideological autonomy" in exchange for political support.

[27][28] Shortly after taking office, Sadat shocked many Egyptians by dismissing and imprisoning two of the most powerful figures in the regime, Vice President Ali Sabri, who had close ties with Soviet officials, and Sharawi Gomaa, the Interior Minister, who controlled the secret police.

[23] Sadat's rising popularity would accelerate after he cut back the powers of the hated secret police,[23] expelled Soviet military from the country[29] and reformed the Egyptian army for a renewed confrontation with Israel.

The most striking achievement (Operation Badr, also known as The Crossing) was the Egyptian military's advance approximately 15 km into the occupied Sinai Peninsula after penetrating and largely destroying the Bar Lev Line.

[34] The initial Egyptian and Syrian victories in the war restored popular morale throughout Egypt and the Arab World and, for many years after, Sadat was known as the "Hero of the Crossing".

On 8 April 1976, he visited the Vatican for the first time, and got a message of support from Pope Paul VI regarding achieving peace with Israel, to include a just solution to the Palestinian issue.

[40] In January 1977, a series of 'Bread Riots' protested Sadat's economic liberalization and specifically a government decree lifting price controls on basic necessities like bread.

Sadat met with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem about his views on how to achieve a comprehensive peace to the Arab–Israeli conflict, which included the full implementation of UN Resolutions 242 and 338.

[44][45][46] The Peace treaty was finally signed by Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin in Washington, D.C., United States, on 26 March 1979, following the Camp David Accords, a series of meetings between Egypt and Israel facilitated by US president Jimmy Carter.

The agreement also provided for the free passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal and recognition of the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways.

[23] The improved relations Egypt gained with the West through the Camp David Accords soon gave the country resilient economic growth.

The relationship between Cairo and Tehran became so friendly that the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, called Sadat his "dear brother".

[51] After the 1973 war with Israel, Iran assumed a leading role in cleaning up and reactivating the blocked Suez Canal with heavy investment.

When the Shah died, Sadat ordered that he be given a state funeral and be interred at the Al-Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo, the resting place of Egyptian Khedive Isma'il Pasha, his mother Khushyar Hanim, and numerous other members of the royal family of Egypt and Sudan.

[23] Following a failed military coup in June 1981, Sadat ordered a major crackdown that resulted in the arrest of numerous opposition figures.

According to interviews and information gathered by journalist Lawrence Wright, the group was recruiting military officers and accumulating weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch "a complete overthrow of the existing order" in Egypt.

Chief strategist of El-Jihad was Abbud al-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose "plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing – he expected – a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country".

[56] The roundup missed a Jihad cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who would succeed in assassinating Anwar Sadat that October.

Members of the Group's 'Majlis el-Shura' ('Consultative Council') – headed by the famed 'blind shaykh' – were arrested two weeks before the killing, but they did not disclose the existing plans and Islambouli succeeded in assassinating Sadat.

[58] On 6 October 1981, Sadat was assassinated during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal.

In addition to Sadat, eleven others were killed, including the Cuban ambassador, an Omani general, a Coptic Orthodox bishop and Samir Helmy, the head of Egypt's Central Auditing Agency (CAA).

[60][61] Twenty-eight were wounded, including Vice President Hosni Mubarak, Irish Defence Minister James Tully, and four US military liaison officers.

Over three hundred Islamic radicals were indicted in the trial of assassin Khalid Islambouli, including future al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Omar Abdel-Rahman, and Abd al-Hamid Kishk.

On 31 October 2006, he was sentenced to a year in prison for defaming Egypt's armed forces, less than a month after he gave the interview accusing Egyptian generals of masterminding his uncle's assassination.

In an interview with a Saudi television channel, he also claimed both the United States and Israel were involved noting that no one from the special personal protection group of Sadat fired a single shot during the killing, and not one of them has been put on trial.

The film was promptly banned by the Egyptian government, as were all other movies produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures, over allegations of historical inaccuracies.