Abd al-Halim Abu Ghazala him to run as their presidential candidate, but he refused due to their different ideological backgrounds. Abu Ghazala died on 6 September 2008 at El-Galla Military Hospital in Cairo at the age of 78, from throat cancer. Abd al-Halim Abu Ghazala Mohamed Abd al-Halim Abu Ghazala (1930–2008) (محمد عبد الحليم أبو غزاله) was Defense Minister of Egypt from 1981 to 1989. Abu Ghazala was seated next to Anwar Sadat when the president was assassinated. He was born in Zuhur Al Omara Village, Dilingat, Behera governorate, in February 1930. His family descended from "Awlad Aly" tribe. After completing his secondary education,
History of Egypt under Anwar Sadat allowing it to publish a monthly magazine, al-Dawa, which appeared regularly until September 1981 (although he did not allow the group's reconstitution). In 1971, the concentration camps where Islamists were held were closed, and the regime began to gradually release the imprisoned Muslim Brothers, though the organisation itself remained illegal; the last of those still behind bars regained their freedom in the general amnesty of 1975. Sadat also considered Islamists, particularly al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, a "useful counterweight" to his Marxist and Arab leftist opposition, student groups being particularly vocal and active. From 1973 to 1979 al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya grew (in part with