About Anwar El Sadat Muhammad Anwar El Sadat, or Anwar El Sadat (Arabic: محمد أنور السادات‎, Muḥammad Anwar as-Sādāt) (25 December 1918 - 6 October 1981), was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by Islamists on 6 October 1981. He was a senior member of the Free Officers group that overthrew the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom he succeeded as President in 1970. In his eleven years as president he changed Egypt's direction, departing from some of the economic and political principles of Nasserism by re-instituting the multi-party system and launching the Infitah. His leadership in the October War of 1973 made him a hero in Egypt, and for a time throughout the Arab World. His visit to Israel and the eventual Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty won him the Nobel Peace Prize, but was an act enormously unpopular amongst Egyptians and other Arabs, and resulted in Egypt being suspended from the Arab League. The peace treaty was the primary reason given by Khalid Islambouli, one of Sadat's assassins, for his opposition to Sadat.