Their love has lasted the test of time as Sadeq and Salah attended the same school and were classmates throughout elementary and junior years. That’s when and where their love story began, according to Sadeq’s mother.

They got married in 2013 and now have their little angel Makka, named after the holy city in Saudi Arabia since the Muslim couple has their strong faith in common.

Magi Salah’s appearances in public

Magi appeared in public a few times. Unfortunately, she was heavily criticized following her first public appearance when Salah received the Premier League 2017/18 Golden Boot.

Sadeq appeared with her husband at celebrations held by the Confederation of African Football when Salah won the African Player of the Year award.

She appeared with their daughter Makka during celebrations marking Salah’s winning of the Premier League Golden Boot award, and after Liverpool won the 2019 UEFA Champions League.

Her simple and conservative attire drew mixed reactions. She was compared to many footballers’ wives who flaunt their presence on social media and dress fashionably.

Unlike them (e.g.,  Ronaldo’s wife, Georgina Rodriguez) stays loyal to her roots and insists on visiting her hometown whenever she can. She maintains a simple lifestyle, even after all the fame and changes she was exposed to throughout the years.

Sometimes tabloids criticize Magi Salah for her conservative clothing style but she remains humble and loyal to her roots and Islam values. She prefers to live a simple life and stay out of the public focus.

She’s a philanthropist who helps girls from her village with marriage expenses as well as lends a hand to unprivileged families, all while remaining humble and away from the spotlight.

She tries not to draw attention to herself or intentionally stole the spotlight in spite of Arab beauty charming but prefers to stay in the shade and motivate her husband to succeed.

Magi and Mo’s Wedding

Sadeq, who maintains a simple lifestyle, fell in love with Salah 10 years before they married. Their love story was the talk of their hometown.

Salah and Magi got married on December 17, 2013, in Nagrig, Egypt. Back then, Salah was beginning to taste fame with European football, as part of the Swiss football club ‘Basel’ and had just returned to his village on his first break.

The wedding was a gala event that brought the whole village together. Of the thousands of guests present at the wedding, there were a few popular Egyptian faces such as the singer’s Hamada Hilal, Sa’ad Al Sughayar, and Abdel Basset Hamouda.

Egyptian singers performed at the wedding. Magi looked adorable in her white wedding dress. The people of Nagrig blessed the couple, and according to Nagrig’s traditional customs, they gifted them practical gifts that would help them set up their life after marriage.

Magi and Salah moved to Merseyside, a metropolitan county in North West England, after marriage.

Magi Sadeq’s daughter

The couple had a daughter in October 2014, at the ‘Westminster Hospital,’ London. She was named “Makka,” after the Islamic holy city Mecca.

The Muslim couple deliberately chose a different spelling for their daughter’s name, as they did not want people to confuse her or the significance of her name with the bingo club company ‘Mecca Bingo.’ It should be mentioned that gambling is not allowed in Islam.

Mohamed Salah was playing for ‘Chelsea’ when Makka was born. Though Magi tries to keep Makka away from the media glare, Salah often posts her photos on ‘Instagram.’

Salah usually posts pictures on his Instagram account, which now has 13.7 million followers, of him playing with Makka on the beach, at home, or in the park.

Devout Muslim Couple

Both Magi and Mo are religious. Magi is a staunch believer of Islam and wears a “hijab” every time she steps out in public.

Fans of the English soccer team Liverpool F.C. unveiled a new chant in honor of their star winger, Mohamed Salah.

The fans, who had traveled to Portugal for a Champions League match against F.C. Porto, pumped their fists and hopped up and down, with pint glasses in hand, as they belted out a cheer to the tune of “Good Enough,” a 1996 hit by the English pop band Dodgy ended in, “if he scores another few (goals), then I’ll be Muslim, too.”

In the thirtieth minute of the game, a shot came caroming off the goalpost. Salah settled the ball with his right foot, flicked it over Porto’s goalkeeper with his left, took a touch with his head, and then volleyed the ball into the net.

After the game, the “I’ll be Muslim, too” video exploded across social media, garnering millions of views among triumphant Liverpool fans, but also legions of viewers who had no interest in soccer at all.

On the pitch, Salah often celebrates goals by dropping to his knees and touching his forehead to the grass in the sujood (an Islamic prayer position), while Liverpool fans have the above-mentioned chant of “If he scores another few, then I’ll be Muslim, too”.

But the Salah effect is having an impact beyond the stadium walls, say researchers from Stanford University, who found a drop in hate crimes around Liverpool since Salah signed with the club in June 2017.

Double Standards

Away from all the fame, Magi has been there through all Mo’s ups and downs, and, in return, Salah made sure to stand up for his wife, daughter, and all women around the world. He believes that supporting women is not optional.

“I think women’s rights, that’s the most important thing,” Mo told Bleacher Report. “I think something we need to change in the Middle East more. I am not saying we are treating women in a bad way. What I am saying is we have the flexibility to do much better. It is something in our hands and our minds,” Salah said.

However, Salah’s GQ shoot started a debate on modesty. He came under fire for posing shirtless on the cover of men’s magazine GQ after winning the publication’s Man of the Year award, sparking a debate about double standards of ‘modesty norms relating to gender.

The Egyptian footballer was with Victoria’s Secret model Alessandra Ambrosio, who won the magazine’s Fashion Icon award.

“Each time he steps on a pitch, Mohamed Salah balances the expectations of a nation – and one of the world’s most famous football clubs,” GQ commented.

But once the photos reached social media, it was a different sort of expectations that came up for debate.

“Any Arab woman in the public spotlight wouldn’t be able to get away with 1/1000 of what Mo Salah is celebrated for and its for that reason I stopped stunning this man and won’t celebrate any Arab man until Arab women are afforded the same unconditional support,” wrote one Twitter user, referring to how a similar shoot by an Arab woman would be judged very differently.

“Imagine an Arab woman athlete posing like this, with male white models draped across her shoulders. … She’d be lucky to survive,” said another user.

Salah, who has achieved international renown through his football career, has been lionized by fans as a paragon of humility, as well as an ambassador to the West for Arabs and Muslims.

But the debate that arose on social media has brought to the fore a more serious issue which many Arab women have tried to highlight.

Taboos around gender-specific modesty in the Arab world have, even in recent times, had deadly consequences, with women often on the receiving end of so-called ‘honor’ violence.

As an example, 21-year-old Palestinian Israa Ghrayeb died after being hospitalized in Bethlehem with severe injuries. Ghrayeb was allegedly beaten by furious male relatives for posting a video on social media with her soon-to-be fiancé.