Former Egyptian First Lady, Jehan Sadat
Jehan Sadat, widow of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, passed away in Egypt on Friday after a brief battle with illness.
A relative of Sadat, 87, had on Thursday said she had been battling an illness for a year and a half and was receiving medical treatment abroad before returning to Egypt.
AFP reports that Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in his reaction to Sadat death said: “she had been a role model for Egyptian women and granted her a national award posthumously. A key highway in Cairo is to be named after her. She was buried in a military funeral ceremony on Friday, attended by el-Sissi and dozens of other government officials”.
Jehan Safwat Raouf was born in August 1933 in Cairo to an Egyptian middle-class father and a British mother. In 1949, at age 15, she married Anwar Sadat, a military officer at the time who later served as Egypt’s president from 1970 until his assassination by Islamic extremists in 1981.
Jehan Sadat became popular after she consistently stood by her husband’s decision to establish a good relationship with Israel in 1979. The move stirred a lot of controversy as Ahmed Sadat was the first Arab leader to extend the olive branch to Israel.
While her husband was in power, Sadat also gained a reputation for staunchly advocating for women’s rights by advocating for laws that granted women the right to alimony and custody of children in case of divorce.
In addition to her advocacy works, she also established herself as a volunteer for charitable works.
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