Mohamed Naguib

Biography

Mohamed Naguib was born in Khartoum in 1901 into a family of Egyptian army officers. He finished his schooling and military training at Gordon Memorial College in 1918, joined the army, and also qualified in law, adding postgraduate degrees in political economy and civil law by 1931.

He rose steadily through the ranks, serving on the border and as governor of Sinai, and was promoted to brigadier general in 1948. Wounded several times in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, he came home a national hero and was made director of the military academy, where he met the young officers of the Free Officers movement, who asked him to lead them.

After the coup of 23 July 1952 forced King Farouk to abdicate, Naguib became commander-in-chief, then prime minister in September 1952, and in June 1953 the first President of the newly declared republic. He negotiated Sudan's independence and the withdrawal of British troops from Egypt.

A power struggle with Gamal Abdel Nasser, who saw him as a figurehead, ended with Naguib's removal in November 1954. He spent the next seventeen years under house arrest until Anwar Sadat released him in 1971, published his memoirs shortly before his death in Cairo in 1984, and was posthumously awarded the Order of the Nile in 2013.