Politics And Islam In Contemporary Sudan

Why wasn't Islam the rallying point and battle cry of the anti-colonial movement in the Sudan? Why did the mainstream political parties and the first military regime maintain the 'secular' political structures of the colonial state? Why did the influential parties opt for an 'Islamic constitution' in the 1960s? Why did Nimeiry's regime change is course? This work attempts to answer these and related questions. Three key issues are addressed within the framework of the relationship between Islam, society and politics : the manifestation of Islam in the particular context of Sudanese society; the politicisation / repoliticisation of Islam and the Islamicisation of politics; and the mechanisms that influence the rise of a specific Islamicist force or enhance calls for Islamicisation.

Gabriel Warburg contends that efforts in Sudan to enforce an Islamic state and an Islamic constitution on a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society have led to prolonged civil war, endless military coups, and political, social, and economic bankruptcy. He analyzes the history of Sudan's Islamic politics to illuminate current conflicts in the region. The revolt in 1881 was led by a Mahdi who came to renew and purify Islam. It was in effect an uprising against a corrupt Islamic regime, the largely alien Turco-Egyptian ruling elite. The Mahdiyya was therefore an anti-colonial movement, seeking to liberate Sudan from alien rule and to unify the Muslim Umma, and it later evolved into the first expression of Sudanese nationalism and statehood. Post-independence Islamic radicalism, in turn, can be viewed against the background of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium (1899-1956). It also thrived as a result of the resurgence of Islam since the mid-1960s, when Nasserism and other popular ideologies were swept aside. Finally, Sudan has emerged as the center of militancy in Sunni Islam since June 1989, when a group of radical Islamic officers, under the guidance of Dr. Hassan al-Turabi and the NIF, assumed power.

The book aims to unravel the complexity of dynamics of power, domination, and resistance in Sudan. It will also draw special attention to who rules the country and how they ruled and what tools they deployed to execute their internal, regional, and international policies. Ultimately, by focusing on Sudan, I hope to provide an in-depth understanding of how political Islam operates in practical terms within the Middle East and North Africa.

A Muslim scholar with extensive experience in Africa, T. Abdou Maliqalim Simone was recruited by the Islamic fundamentalist Shari‘a Movement in Sudan to act as consultant for its project to unite Muslims and non-Muslims in Khartoum's shanty towns. Based on his interviews with hundreds of individuals during this time, plus extensive historical and archival research, In Whose Image? is a penetrating examination of the use of Islam as a tool for political transformation. Drawing a detailed portrait of political fundamentalism during the 1985-89 period of democratic rule in the Sudan, Simone shows how the Shari‘a Movement attempted to shape a viable social order by linking religious integrity and economic development, where religious practice was to dominate all aspects of society and individuals' daily lives. However, because Sudanese society is remarkably diverse ethnically and religiously, this often led to conflict, fragmentation, and violence in the name of Islam. Simone's own Islamic background leads him to deplore the violence and the devastating psychological, economic, and cultural consequences of one form of Islamic radicalism, while holding to hope that a viable form of this inherently political religion can in fact be applied. As a counterpoint, he ends with a discussion of South Africa's Call of Islam, which seeks political unity through a more tolerant interpretation of Islam. As an introduction to religious discourse in Africa, this book will be widely read by students and scholars throughout African Studies, Religious Studies, Anthropology, and Political Science.

Building on his successful book, The First Islamist Republic, Abdullahi A. Gallab’s Their Second Republic: Islamism in the Sudan from Disintegration to Oblivion deals with Islamism, its representations, history, and transformations in the region. Continuing the study of Islamism in power the book affirms the continuous disintegration of the Islamist movement in the Sudan taking a critical look at its institutions and their ideological and rhetorical stances. The book provides an entry point into Hasan al-Turabi’s Islamism, its local regimes and their disintegration. The book addresses the profound transformations that stem from the anachronistic qualities of political Islam as it deploys violence to maintain power. Gallab describes this as savage separation of religion and state. The main focus of the book is to provide a socio-historical analysis of developments and transformations of historic forms of Islamism and its “runaway” world as well as situating it in its local and global contexts.

Introduction: In search of the Islamic state -- Of shaykhs and kings : the making of Sudanese Islam -- Civilizing religion -- In search of certainty -- The country that prays upon the Prophet the most : the aesthetic formation of the Islamic state -- Politics in an age of salvation -- Epilogue: escaping the Islamic state?

A comprehensive study of the life and political thought of Sudanese Islamist scholar and politician Hasan al-Turabi, for undergraduate and graduate students studying the modern Sudanese state and Islamic government and politics in Africa and the Middle East, and journalists and policy-makers focused on core debates on democracy, Islamism and Jihad.

Here is a new edition of well-known introductory history of the Sudan, which takes events of this troubled region up to 1998. This extended coverage considers the last years of Jaafar Nimeiri's government to his fall from power in 1985; the subsequent transitional military regime; the return to parliamentary rule, and the current attempts to establish an Islamic state under a renewed military regime. More than a political narrative, this book shows how the modern Sudan has been shaped by three key elements in its history: the influence of the Ottoman Empire; the impact of British domination; and, above all else, the enduring indigenous tradition of the region, produced by the intermingling of its African and Arab Muslim inheritance.