The Brotherhood played a supporting but not crucial role in the revolution. Members of the Free Officers, including Gamal Abdel Nasser (who was to become the leader of the new regime) and Anwar al-Sadat, had had close contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood since the 1940s, and some were members of the Society (Nasser himself may have been one of these). Members of the Brotherhood had fought alongside the officers in Palestine, and had been armed and trained by them for deployment in the Canal Zone in the year preceding the revolution. Despite Hudaybi's ambivalence, the Brotherhood had agreed to assist the revolution, mostly by