Shams Badran

Shams Badran
Minister of War
In office 10 September 1966 – 10 June 1967
President	Gamal Abdel Nasser
Preceded by	Abdel Wahab Al Bishri
Succeeded by	Abdel Wahab Al Bishri (interim) Amin Howeidi
Personal details
Born	(1929-04-19)19 April 1929 Giza, Kingdom of Egypt
Died	28 November 2020(2020-11-28) (aged 91) Plymouth, United Kingdom
Alma mater	Military academy

Shams Al Din Badran (Arabic: شمس الدين بدران; 19 April 1929 – 28 November 2020) was an Egyptian government official. He served as minister of war of Egypt during Gamal Abdel Nasser's era and the Six-Day War of 1967. He was removed from his post during the war and later imprisoned. After his release he married a British woman and lived in "self-imposed exile" in the United Kingdom.

Early life and education

Badran was born on 19 April 1929.^[1][2] After high school, he attended a military academy and graduated in 1948 as a junior officer^[1] and almost immediately dispatched to the 1947–1949 Palestine war, where he was besieged by Zionist militias along with Gamal Abdel Nasser in Al-Faluja, for which he earned a Gold Medal of Merit from Farouk of Egypt.^[2] Badran was later sent to France for a one-year training on a military scholarship.^[2]

Career and activities

Badran was the head of Egypt's military security services in the mid-1960s.^[3] He also served as the office manager of Field Marshal Abdul Hakim Amer under Gamal Abdel Nasser's presidency.^[4] Badran was one of the top aides of Amer.^[5] The Muslim Brotherhood accused him and Amer of responsibility for the torture of Brotherhood leaders who had been arrested due to their alleged plans to assassinate Nasser in 1965.^[6][7]

Badran was appointed minister of war on 10 September 1966, a few months before the Six-Day War in June 1967, replacing Abdel Wahab Al Bishri in the post.^[1][8] Amer had supported Badran's appointment.^[9] Badran was also named as the chief of Nasser's cabinet the same year.^[10] Badran met with the Fatah members in the late 1966.^[11] They asked to create a Fatah base in the Negev desert which would be backed by the Egypt's logistical help to attack the Israeli army.^[11] However, Badran did not take their plan seriously.^[11] On 25 May 1967, Badran visited Moscow and met senior Soviet officials, including Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin, to secure their support regarding a perceived Israeli threat.^[5] Badran resigned from office on 10 June 1967, during the Six-Day War, and was replaced by Abdel Wahab Al Bishri, interim minister of war.^[8][12] Amin Howeidi was named as the minister of war on 22 July 1967.^[8]

Following the defeat of the Egypt in the Six-Day War Badran was considered as a successor to the President Gamal Abdel Nasser.^[13]

Conviction and later years

Badran along with other senior officials, including Amer, was detained on 25 August 1967 on charges of plotting against Nasser.^[14][15] However, they were tried for their roles during the six day war in 1967, including for Badran charges of torturing members of the Muslim Brotherhood.^[16][17] Badran appeared in court in two separate trials.^[16] He and Salah Nasr, former chief of intelligence and also part of Amer's faction, were convicted and sentenced to hard labour due to their roles in the defeat.^[18]

Following his release from prison by president Anwar Sadat on 23 May 1974, Badran left Egypt and went to live in London.^[19] Badran published part of his memoirs in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa in 2014.^[17] Badran's reports included information about the personal life of Gamal Abdel Nasser which were disputed by Sami Sharaf, a Nasser era official.^[20]

Personal life

Badran married his first wife, Muna Rushdie, on 7 June 1962. The couple had one daughter named Hiba; they divorced in January 1989 by a court decision, as he had been absent for three years. Rushdie worked at The American University in Cairo.^[19] In the 1970s he married a British woman with whom he had two children. Badran lived with his family in "self-imposed exile" in the United Kingdom, though one of his children moved to Saudi Arabia and another to the United States.^[17]

On 28 November 2020, Badran died in the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust; however, he had asked to be buried in Egypt.^[17]

References

1. Panayiotis J. Vatikiotis (1978). Nasser and His Generation. New York: Croom Helm. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-85664-433-7.
2. "رحيل شمس بدران.. آخر وزراء جمهورية ما وراء الشمس". Al Jazeera (in Arabic). 1 December 2020.
3. Gilles Kepel (1985). Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Los Angeles and Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-520-05687-9.
4. Abdou Mubasher (7–13 June 2007). "The road to Naksa". Al Ahram Weekly. 848. Archived from the original on 25 March 2013.
5. Richard Bordeaux Parker, ed. (1996). The Six-Day War: A Retrospective. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-8130-1383-1.
6. "Your torture still shows on our bodies, Brothers tell Nasser's defense minister". Al-Masry Al-Youm. 3 July 2012. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
7. John Sainsbury (2 August 2013). "Army-Muslim Brotherhood feud has dire consequences for Egypt's future". The Star. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
8. "Former Ministers of War and Defense". Ministry of Defense. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
9. "Egypt-Internal Relations". Mongabay. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
10. Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid Marsot (2007). A History of Egypt: From the Arab Conquest to the Present. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-521-87717-6.
11. Moshe Shemesh (2006). "The Fida'iyyun Organization's Contribution to the Descent to the Six-Day War". Israel Studies. 11 (1): 11. doi:10.2979/isr.2006.11.1.1.
12. "Nasser picks new aide". Eugene Register Guard. Associated Press. 21 July 1967. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
13. Laura M. James (2006). Nasser at War. Arab Images of the Enemy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 124. doi:10.1057/9780230626379. ISBN 978-0-230-62637-9.
14. "Ex-Egyptian vice president arrested". The Evening Independent. 4 September 1967. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
15. Hicham Bou Nassif (Autumn 2013). "Wedded to Mubarak: The Second Careers and Financial Rewards of Egypt's Military Elite, 1981-2011". The Middle East Journal. 67 (4): 510. doi:10.3751/67.4.11. JSTOR 43698073. S2CID 144651187.
16. Hamied Ansari (1986). Egypt: The Stalled Society. New York: SUNY Press. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-88706-183-7.
17. "وفاة وزير الحربية المصري الأسبق شمس بدران في لندن". The Independent (in Arabic). 1 December 2020.
18. Michael C. Desch (2008). Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-8018-8801-4.
19. Mustafa el Fiqi (25 September 2008). "Shams Badran". Al-Masry Al-Youm. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
20. David Sadler (25 January 2023). "The departure of Sami Sharaf, the treasurer of Abdel Nasser.. and the prisoner of the Sadat era". Globe Echo. Retrieved 22 August 2023.

External links

• Media related to Shams Badran at Wikimedia Commons