page_title: Cairo University
section_title: Notable alumni
hierarchical_section_title: Cairo University / Notable alumni
caption_attribution_description: Dansk: Yasser Arafat. København. 3. maj 1999. Den palæstinensiske leder Yasser Arafat besøger Danmark, herunder Udenrigspolitisk Nævn i Folketinget English: Yasser Arafat on a visit in Denmark. Here in Udenrigspolitisk Nævn (part of the Danish parliament, Folketinget) on 1999-05-03.
context_page_description: Cairo University, known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university. Its main campus is in Giza, immediately across the Nile from Cairo. It was founded on 21 December 1908; however, after being housed in various parts of Cairo, its faculties, beginning with the Faculty of Arts, were established on its current main campus in Giza in October 1929. It is the second oldest institution of higher education in Egypt after Al Azhar University, notwithstanding the pre-existing higher professional schools that later became constituent colleges of the university. It was founded and funded as the Egyptian University by a committee of private citizens with royal patronage in 1908 and became a state institution under King Fuad I in 1925. In 1940, four years following his death, the University was renamed King Fuad I University in his honor. It was renamed a second time after the Egyptian revolution of 1952.
  The University currently enrolls approximately 155,000 students in 20 faculties and 3 institutions.
context_section_description: Husayn Fawzi Alnajjar, historian, political scientist, and strategist
  Said Ashour, professor of history
  Mohamed Atalla, engineer, inventor of MOSFET (MOS field-effect transistor), pioneer in silicon semiconductors and security systems, founder of Atalla Corporation
  Naima Ilyas al-Ayyubi, first female lawyer in Egypt
  Gamal Aziz, also known as Gamal Mohammed Abdelaziz, Egyptian former President and Chief Operating Officer of Wynn Resorts, and former CEO of MGM Resorts International, indicted  as part of the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal
  Hisham Barakat, assassinated Prosecutor General of Egypt
  Boutros Boutros-Ghali, sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) 1992–1996
  Eli Cohen, Israeli Mossad spy that infiltrated the highest echelons of Syrian Government and instrumental in Israeli success in the Six Day War and other successes
  Taher Elgamal, designer of the ElGamal encryption system and considered "Father of SSL"
  Wael Ghonim, Egyptian activist and figure of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011
  Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq
  Adly Mansour, Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt
  Mohamed Morsi, deposed President of Egypt
  Amr Moussa, Secretary-General of the Arab League 2001–2011, and president of the Egyptian constitution amendment committee in 2013
  Omar Sharif, actor, nominated for an Academy Award and has won three Golden Globe Awards
  Magdi Yacoub, professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Imperial College London
  Mohamed Shaker El-Markabi, Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy
  Ayman al-Zawahiri, former practicing surgeon in the Egyptian Army, current leader of the militant organisation al-Qaeda
  Yuriko Koike, former Japanese Minister of Defense and first female governor of Tokyo
caption: Yasser Arafat, 1956
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