From Disintegration to Fragmentation: The Islamic Movement and the al-Inqadh Regime in Sudan

Abstract

The Islamic Movement of Sudan established the first Islamist regime in the Sunni Islamic world by a military coup. By seising state power, the Islamic Movement tried to overhaul the political system of Sudan. However, what it brought to the politics of Sudan was far from what its leader Hasan al-Turabi envisioned. It was largely due to the failure of the Islamic Movement to institutionalise its control over state power, originating from its design to conceal the nature of the coup which prevented it from claiming the official leadership of the state. The military Islamists leading the coup continued to run the state publicly. The institutions of the Islamic Movement itself were weakened in the process, making it more difficult to lay the national politics on an institutional foundation. The division and conflicts among the Islamists could not be solved in an institutional framework, leading to the split of the Islamic Movement. The Islamists were further fragmented after the split, both within and without the regime, opening the gate for factional politics.