Major General Mohamed Bey Naguib Youssef Qutb El-Qashlan (Arabic: محمد بيه نجيب يوسف قطب القشلان; 19 February 1901 – 28 August 1984), known simply as Mohamed Naguib (Arabic: محمد نجيب), was a Sudanese-born Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who, along with Gamal Abdel Nasser, was one of the two principal leaders of the Free Officers movement of 1952 that toppled the monarchy of Egypt and the Sudan, leading to the establishment of the Republic of Egypt.

A distinguished and decorated general who was wounded in action in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, he became the leader of the Free Officers Movement of nationalist army officers opposed to the continued presence of British troops in Egypt and Sudan, and the corruption and incompetence of the monarchy under King Farouk. Following the toppling of Farouk in July 1952, Naguib went on to serve as the head of the Revolutionary Command Council, the Prime Minister of Egypt, and later its first president, successfully negotiating the independence of Sudan (hitherto a condominium of Egypt and the United Kingdom), and the withdrawal of all British military personnel from Egypt. His tenure as president came to an end in November 1954 due to disagreements with other members of the Free Officers, particularly Nasser, who forced him to resign and succeeded him as president.

Mohamed Naguib was born on 19 February 1901 in Khartoum, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, to Youssef Naguib and Zohra Ahmed Othman. Zohra was from an Egyptian military family which lived in Omdurman, as her father and her brother were Egyptian officers who served there., while Youssef was a ranking officer of the Egyptian Armed Forces who had come from a notable Egyptian family of army officers. Naguib was the eldest of nine children.

Naguib attended secondary and military schools at Gordon Memorial College in Khartoum, graduating in 1918. He joined the Egyptian Royal Guard in 1923. In 1927, Naguib became the first Egyptian military officer to obtain a law license. In 1929, he earned a postgraduate degree in political economy, and then another postgraduate degree in civil law in 1931.

In December 1931, Naguib was promoted to the rank of captain. He moved to the border patrol in Arish in 1934. He was part of the military committee that carried out the terms of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. In Khartoum, he founded a newspaper for the Egyptian Armed Forces in 1937, and he was promoted to the rank of major on 6 May 1938.

Naguib tendered his resignation in protest following the Abdeen Palace incident of 1942. Naguib wrote in his autobiography that he had resigned because he had broken his oath of allegiance to the King by failing to prevent the British siege of the palace, but noted that Abdeen Palace officials thanked him for his actions regardless, and refused to accept his resignation.

Naguib subsequently continued his upward trajectory through the hierarchy of the Egyptian military, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel and the post of regional governor of the Sinai Peninsula in 1944. He took on leadership of the mechanized infantry of the Sinai in 1947 and was promoted to brigadier general in 1948.

Naguib performed outstandingly during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, where he was wounded seven times. For his service, he was awarded the first military star of Fuad as well as the title of Bey. He was also subsequently appointed to the directorship of the Egyptian Military Academy, where he would ultimately encounter the members of the Free Officers movement.