Jehan Sadat to her father's wishes, but also attended a secondary Christian school for girls in Cairo. As a teenage schoolgirl she was intrigued with Anwar Sadat as a local hero through following reports in the media about his heroic stories and his courage, loyalty, and determination in resisting the British occupation of Egypt. She heard many stories about him from her cousin, whose husband was his colleague in resistance and later in prison. It was at her fifteenth birthday party that she first met her future husband Anwar Sadat, shortly after his release from prison, where he served two and a
History of Egypt under Anwar Sadat workers allowed families in Egypt to buy "refrigerators, TV sets, video recorders, cars and flats." Liberalization also included the reinstitution of due process and the legal banning of torture. Sadat dismantled much of the existing political machine and brought to trial a number of former government officials accused of criminal excesses during the Nasser era. Sadat tried to expand participation in the political process in the mid-1970s but later abandoned this effort. In the last years of his life, Egypt was wracked by violence arising from discontent with Sadat's rule and sectarian tensions, and it experienced a renewed measure of