My interview with Jehan Sadat

Last Friday, Egypt's former first lady Jehan Sadat died after a long illness. She was 87. The news in Egypt was vague, brief and prompt; President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi interrupted his biking trip to the country's new administrative capital to attend her private military funeral. Reaction in Egypt was mixed, whereas the response in the West has been focused on her husband's tragic death and her championing of women's rights in Egypt. "If [Mohammed bin Salman] let women drive a car in Saudi Arabia," someone tweeted, "Ms. Sadat gave Egyptian women the right to divorce."

Sadat was the first visible first lady in Egypt, active in social programs, and indeed played a prominent role in women's rights. I met her here in Minnesota in October 2001. She was visiting to speak at a forum on women in leadership. I was offered an interview.

I wasn't too excited about it. During her husband's tenure, I'd had my first brush with police and political activism; I had been imprisoned and tortured. So this was personal — a chance to meet the widow of the man who had imprisoned me (and thousands of others).

In addition, to me, Sadat was a political lightweight — she spoke a lot about peace but not enough about justice. But I knew that for the interview to work, I would need to stay away from personal vendetta, from big questions.

Sadat came to the world stage after a military officer assassinated her husband during a victory parade on Oct. 6, 1981. This didn't keep her out of the spotlight; she kept active on the public stage. She taught at the American University in Cairo, and later was a senior fellow at the University of Maryland. She wrote two books, "A Woman of Egypt" (1987) and "My Hope for Peace" (2009).

The interview was to be on the eighth floor of the Radisson Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. I went there and found a large room with big windows overseeing the downtown streets. In one corner, there was a table and two chairs. As the crew set the scene, lighting and camera, I waited outside the room to meet Sadat. I spotted her a few minutes later walking with an entourage of three: a young lady, a hotel staff member and, trailing, a man who looked Egyptian. I can spot an Egyptian from miles away (a tip: looks lost), and I rushed to greet them.

"Welcome to Minnesota, Ms. Sadat," I said, introducing myself as an Egyptian American, host of an Arab American TV show.

"Masha'Allah, Masha'Allah" — God's will — she said in Arabic, breaking a smile. No one introduced the gentleman with them, and he said nothing during the entire visit other than randomly asking me at the end how much the camera cost; later, I learned he was her bodyguard, a general.

During the interview, Sadat was chatty, approachable and friendly, always smiling and animated. I avoided controversial topics. Her husband had been a complicated man — a hero for some and a villain for others. I was interested in Ms. Sadat's relationship with the man she knew best.

She spoke about the first time she had met Anwar Sadat through a mutual family friend; she was only 14, he was tall and assured. This was in 1948; she was the daughter of an Egyptian father and British mother. She lived the security of a middle-class family, he lived the insecurity of a low-income family in the southern part of Egypt. He was a military man, a fugitive on the run, accused of plotting against the British occupation. Against her family's wish, she married the man she loved the following year; she was only 15, Sadat was 30 — so much for women's rights.

She said her husband was fond of his mother; would always talk about the people in his village; liked to wear his traditional jilbab, sit on the floor and smoke his pipe. She enjoyed taking evening walks by the river, going to the cinema together.

"How could a young middle-class girl fall in love with an older man of a totally different background?" I asked her.

"It was love from first sight; I knew it — he was the man whom I want to spend the rest of my life with."

I had promised myself not to talk politics, but I asked Ms. Sadat, kind of jokingly, if her husband had told her about the D-day of the 1973 war (the day Egyptian armies crossed the Suez Canal and took back part of the occupied Sinai.)

"No," she promptly answered, breaking a smile as if hiding something.

She spoke of her husband with the innocence of a teen in love with a man who had died 20 years earlier. She talked about her works to help Egyptian women gain a voice — about her obsession with women's rights and developments.

At the end of the interview, we started comparing notes. She asked me about my life in America, about my family back in Egypt. All fine, I said.

Then she asked me about the reasons I left Egypt.

That was the moment to share with her something I had tried to avoid talking about during the interview.

"Ms. Sadat, did you know that I was imprisoned and tortured during your husband's tenure?" I asked softly, with a smile.

"Ya Haraam" — how horrible/sad — she responded, almost apologetically. Then I realized that she was a mother, not just the former first lady.

Ahmed Tharwat, host and producer of the local Arab American TV show "BelAhdan with Ahmed," writes for local and international publications. He blogs at Notes From America: www.Ahmediatv.com. Follow him on Twitter: @ahmediaTV.