Sayed Marei

Following his graduation Marei worked at family farm in Al Aziziyah. He joined the Saadist Institutional Party.^[5] He was elected as a member of Parliament in 1942 becoming the youngest parliamentarian in the country.^[1]

Following the regime change in 1952 Marei was named as the managing director of the Supreme Committee for Agrarian Reform.^[5] Therefore, he was in charge of drafting and executing the law on agricultural reforms.^[6] He became the chairman of the board of directors of the Agricultural Credit Bank in March 1955.^[4] His first ministerial post was the minister of state for agrarian reform to which he was appointed on 1 July 1956 in a cabinet reshuffle.^[7] The office was a new addition to the Egyptian cabinet.^[7] He was made the minister of agrarian reform in 1957.^[1] The ministry was named as the ministry of central agrarian reform in 1958, and Marei continued to head it.^[1] He became the minister of agriculture in 1961.^[1] He was removed from the post the same year due to the unsuccessful attempts of the ministry to overcome the cotton worm disaster.^[5]

Marei served as the vice president of the Parliament in the early 1960s.^[3] He was a member of the Arab Socialist Union and became part of its secretariat in November 1964.^[8] He was appointed minister of land reclamation in August 1967 succeeding Abdel Mohsen Abu Al Nour in the post.^[1] Marei was in office until March 1968, and Mohamed Bakr Ahmed replaced him in the post.^[1] However, Marei was reappointed the minister of agriculture in May 1968 when President Gamal Abdel Nasser reshuffled the cabinet.^[8]

Marei was appointed deputy prime minister for agriculture and irrigation in November 1970.^[4] He was named as the secretary general of the Arab Socialist Union on 16 January 1972 replacing Mohammed Abdul Salem Al Zayyat in the post.^[9] With this appointment Marei left his deputy premiership.^[9] He became an advisor to the President Anwar Sadat in April 1973.^[4]

Marei was elected as the Speaker of the House in 1974, replacing Hafiz Badawy in the post.^[3] He also served as the secretary general of the World Food Conference held in Rome, Italy, in November 1974.^[10] Marei's term as speaker of the Parliament ended in October 1978, and he was succeeded by Sufi Abu Taleb in the post.^[4] Then Marei was again named as the advisor to the President Anwar Sadat.^[4] He was one of the political figures of the Sadat era who developed economic policy of the country.^[6] He adopted a politically liberal and socially conservative leaning during this period.^[11]

Marei resigned from his post of the presidential advisor in 1981 shortly after the assassination of Anwar Sadat and the election of Hosni Mobarak as president.^[6]

Marei married a daughter of his father's nephew.^[3] They had five children.^[1] Marei and his wife were related to Zakaria Mohieddin, a member of the Free Officers Movement, who married one of their cousins.^[3] Marei's youngest son, Hassan, married Noha Sadat, daughter of Anwar Sadat, in Alexandria on 7 July 1974.^[12][13]

Marei was among the Egyptian officials who were wounded in the attack on 6 October 1981 when the President Anwar Sadat was killed in a military parade in Cairo.^[14] Marei died on 22 October 1993.^[2]

Marei was awarded by the University of Washington an honorary doctorate in 1960.^[1] He was also awarded a Syrian medal in 1958 and the Grand Cross of Greece.^[1] He was the recipient of the Order of the Republic (1980).^[4]

Robert Springborg, a faculty member of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, published a book on Sayed Marei in 1982. It is entitled Family, Power, and Politics in Egypt. Sayed Bey Marei-His Clan, Clients, and Cohorts.^[15]