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A national referendum was scheduled for early this week, but the balloting was regarded as a mere formality: Mubarak already had taken charge. The government immediately announced an official mourning period of 40 days and, as a special precaution, declared a state of emergency for one year, thereby prohibiting public gatherings and marches during that period. At 8 p.m. Tuesday, Mubarak formally announced Sadat's death to the Egyptian people over television and radio. Said the President-designate: "Allah has ordained that Sadat should die on a day which itself is symbolic of him, among his soldiers, heroes and people proudly celebrating the anniversary of the day on which the Arab nation regained its dignity." Egypt, Mubarak declared, would follow Sadat's course, "without any deviation, the course of peace." For the moment, Sadat's proud belief that he had established "a state of institutions" in Egypt that would permit a peaceful transfer of power, appeared to hold.
That night, and during the days that followed, Cairo was calm. Eleven years earlier, its millions had erupted in frenzied grief after the sudden death of Gamal Abdel Nasser. This time, the city remained unexpectedly tranquil, perhaps because Sadat aroused a different kind of emotion in his countrymen, but also because the state of emergency left people uneasy about venturing into the streets. There were no roadblocks. No extraordinary military presence was visible except around a few key installations and buildings. Stores stayed open late as Cairenes shopped for 'Id al-Adha, the Muslim feast of sacrifice. Only on the morning of the funeral was there a street demonstration. Said a student: "Something is destroyed inside of me. He is gone, I'm here. That's all."
By Thursday, there were reports that the armed forces of Egypt and neighboring Libya, a bitter foe of Sadat's, had been placed on alert, and that rioting by Muslim fundamentalists had broken out in the southern Egyptian city of Asyut, long a center of religious militancy. The clashes in Asyut, in which both police and protesters used firearms, causing hundreds of casualties, did not subside until army reinforcements were brought in. But there were no mass arrests within the army as a result of the assassination, and the country as a whole remained quiet.