Sadat's tenure also witnessed a rise in governmental corruption, and a widening of the gulf between rich and poor, both of which would become hallmarks of the presidency of his successor, Hosni Mubarak.

The war was fought entirely within the borders of Egypt and Syria, and was launched via a coordinated surprise assault at 2pm on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, which coincided with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Egyptian and Syrian forces separately crossed ceasefire lines into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and Syria's Golan Heights respectively, enjoying major successes in the first half of the war.

Notwithstanding the military reversals suffered in the closing stages of the war, Sadat was seen as having restored Egyptian pride following the devastating defeat of 1967, and convinced the Israeli leadership that the status quo was no longer tenable.

[2][3][4][5] Domestic opposition to the treaty was immense across all sectors of Egyptian society, however, the most vociferous denunciation was from Islamists, a group of whom from within Egypt's own armed forces plotted and executed Sadat's assassination several years later on the anniversary of the beginning of the October War.

On 4 March 1974[13] Israel withdrew the last of its troops from the west side of the Suez Canal, and 12 days later Arab oil ministers announced the end of the embargo against the United States.

Sadat dismantled much of the existing political machine and brought to trial a number of former government officials accused of criminal excesses during the Nasser era.

In the last years of his life, Egypt was wracked by violence arising from discontent with Sadat's rule and sectarian tensions, and it experienced a renewed measure of repression including extra judicial arrests.

In October 1978, Sadat reportedly offered Ugandan President Idi Amin aid in form of military equipment, as his country invaded Tanzania.

[16] In his first public speech after Egypt's defeat at the hand of the Israel, Sadat's predecessor Abdul Nasser called for religion to play a more important role in society.

The line is said to have drawn "an exceptionally enthusiastic roar of applause" by the Egyptian audience,[17] and three years later when the 1970s began, religiosity was ascendant in Egypt (as in much of the Muslim world).

(An example being My Itinerary from Doubt to Belief, an autobiography by a very popular Egyptian writer, Dr. Mustafa Mahmud, who had formerly been a staunch believer in scientific positivism, human engineering, and materialism.

[19]) The revival led to greater attendance in prayer and growth of non-state-controlled neighborhood mosques, but also to at least some conflict with the minority Coptic Christians of Egypt, an example being Islamist castigation of Muslim participation in the all-Egyptian spring holiday Sham el-Nessim.

[24] In 1971, the concentration camps where Islamists were held were closed, and the regime began to gradually release the imprisoned Muslim Brothers, though the organisation itself remained illegal; the last of those still behind bars regained their freedom in the general amnesty of 1975.

Sadat also considered Islamists, particularly al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, a "useful counterweight" to his Marxist and Arab leftist opposition, student groups being particularly vocal and active.

From 1973 to 1979 al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya grew (in part with help from the Sadat regime) from a minority group to being "in complete control of the universities" with the leftist organizations being driven underground.

In June 1981, after a brutal sectarian Muslim-Copt fight in the poor al-Zawaiyya Al Hamra district of Cairo, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya was dissolved by the state their infrastructure was destroyed and their leaders arrested.

"[25] According to interviews and information gathered by journalist Lawrence Wright, the radical Islamist group Egyptian Islamic Jihad was recruiting military officers and accumulating weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch "a complete overthrow of the existing order" in Egypt, killing the main leaders of the country, capturing the crucial headquarters of regime institutions, spreading news of the Islamic coup, which they hoped would unleash a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country.