History of Egypt under Anwar Sadat help from the Sadat regime) from a minority group to being "in complete control of the universities" with the leftist organizations being driven underground. In the late 1970s, he began calling himself "The Believer President" and signing his name "Mohammad" Anwar Sadat. He ordered Egypt's state-run television to interrupt programs with the adhan (call to prayer) on the screen five times a day and to increase religious programming. Under his rule local officials banned the sale of alcohol except at places catering to foreign tourists in more than half of Egypt's 26 governorates. However, Islamists came to clash with Sadat
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