Remembering Nationalist Leader Saad Zaghloul

Today, August 23, marks the death anniversary of the nationalist Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul.

His injection into Egyptian politics catalyzed a long period of popular protests against foreign occupation, indigenous despotism, and social feudalism, ultimately leading to the revolution of 1952.

Born in July 1857, Zaghloul was regarded as one of the acclaimed nationalist leaders of modern Egypt and the founder of the Wafd Party. He was a man of the people who became the incarnation of their virtues and their limitations.

Zaghloul was from a well-to-do peasant family in Ibyanah in the Nile River delta. He received his Law degree from the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, and then practiced as an advocate and also dabbled in journalism.

Becoming a judge in the Court of Appeal in 1892, he married, in 1895, a daughter of Muṣṭafa Pasha Fahmi, the prime minister of Egypt.

In 1906, he became head of the newly formed Ministry of Education and played a key role in the creation of the Ḥizb al-Ummah (“People’s Party”). At that time, Egypt was asserting its nationalism against the British occupation.

The party was appreciated by Evelyn Baring, 1st earl of Cromer, the British consul general and virtual ruler of the country, for advocating "cooperation with Europeans in introducing Western civilization into the country."

He served briefly as prime minister in 1924.