Jehan Sadat was an Egyptian human rights activist and the First Lady of Egypt, as the wife of Anwar Sadat, from 1970 until her husband's assassination in 1981. As Egypt's first lady, she greatly influenced the reform of the country's civil rights legislation. Advance laws, referred to as the "Jehan Laws", have given women in Egypt a range of new rights, such as the right to child support and custody in the event of divorce.

Muhammad Anwar es-Sadat was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981. Sadat was a senior member of the Free Officers who overthrew King Farouk in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, under whom he served as Vice President twice and whom he succeeded as president in 1970. In 1978, Sadat and Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, signed a peace treaty in cooperation with United States President Jimmy Carter, for which they were recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize.