Hasan al-Turabi Research Articles

Hasan al-Turabi's Pragmatic Approach to Establishing an Islamic State in Sudan

This research examines the pragmatic approach of Hasan al-Turabi, a key figure in the Sudanese Islamic movement, in fighting for an Islamic state. Using qualitative analysis that combines the concepts of pragmatism and social movement theory, this study reveals al Turabi's strategy in translating Islamic ideals into political action, including building alliances with various religious factions and exploiting revolutionary momentum. Findings demonstrate al-Turabi's success in advancing Islamization and shaping Sudan's socio-political landscape but also faced challenges in the consistent implementation of Sharia and protection of the rights of marginalized groups. Comparisons with Islamist figures such as Rached Ghannouchi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan highlight the particularities of the Sudanese context and variations in the strategies and outcomes of political Islamist movements. This study deepens our understanding of the complex dynamics between political pragmatism and religious idealism in Muslim countries, with important implications for inclusive governance. Through a critical exploration of al-Turabi's legacy, this research contributes to discussions about the future of Islamic politics that accommodates diversity and protects the rights of marginalized groups.

Turkiye – Sudan Relations in Post-Bashir Era

The aim of this study is to scrutinize the diplomatic relations between Turkiye and Sudan post the era of Omar al-Bashir. Historical relations between the Republic of Turkiye, established in 1923 as the successor to the Ottoman Empire, and Sudan have had a positive impact in contemporary times across political, economic, socio-cultural, and security domains. While the relations during the Republican era were relatively limited when Sudan gained independence from Britain, they saw a significant improvement with the administration of Omar al-Bashir and Hasan al-Turabi, who came to power in 1989. Following Turkiye's declaration of "Africa Year" in 2005, Sudan emerged as a prominent country in Ankara's Sub-Saharan Africa policy. Particularly, the African Opening Action Plan initiated in 1998 and the deepening of policies by AK Party governments strengthened relations with Sudan. However, following the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in 2019, transitional periods and political crises in Sudan have adversely affected Turkiye – Sudan relations. This study will address these relations during this period, initially focusing on political, economic, security, and socio-cultural parameters. Subsequently, the study will examine the causes of the crisis in Sudan and the trajectory of the relations. Findings from the post-Bashir era indicate that despite challenges, the relations between the two countries have endured. Nevertheless, the escalation of internal disputes in Sudan into conflicts casts uncertainty on the future of these relations.

CONTESTATION OF ISLAMISM OVER THE QUR’ANIC INTERPRETATION: A STUDY ON AL-TAFSIR AL-TAUHIDI OF HASAN AL-TURABI

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between Islamist ideology and the birth of a tafsir. Hasan al-Turabi, an Islamic ideologue in Sudan, has a basic view of the Qur'an and his own method of interpretation in al-Tafsir al-Tauhidi. This study discovered that Islamism was perceived as a unified Islamic view based on historical dialectical perspectives and an effective historical analysis. Islamism is defined as a form of application of all Islamic values and principles, particularly in advancing social justice values, based on the perspective that the Qur'an teaches tauhid and that every verse is united. From an effective historical perspective, al-Turabi's pattern of interpretation offers methodological-material criticism of the classical and modern tafsir. His model of interpretation emphasizes the excavation of message elements and is used as a guide for living today. The Qur'an is a set of guidelines not only for faith and worship, but also for all aspects of life. As a result, Qur'anic interpretation must be consistent and founded on Qur'anic fundamental values. The presence of al-Tafsir al-Tauhidi demonstrates that al-Turabi's pattern interpretation is not independent from his intellectual, ideological, and political context in Sudan.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan

The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan

The “Civilizational Project” and the southern Sudanese Islamists: between assimilation and exclusion

ABSTRACT Drawing upon interviews and a variety of newspapers and other media associated with the Sudanese Islamic Movement, this article analyses historic developments in its strategy for the Islamization of the now independent region of southern Sudan with particular reference to the experience of members of the movement from that region. It identifies significant parallels between the colonial and Islamist designs for “civilizing” southern Sudanese, arguing that like its colonial predecessor the “Civilizational Project” of Hasan al-Turabi’s “Salvation Regime” alternated between assimilating and excluding them. The post-1989 Islamist regime’s treatment of Islamist southerners before and after the secession of the south in 2011 highlighted the division between these assimilationist and exclusionary trends. Although the movement was largely unsuccessful in recruiting southern members, those who did join were not simply Islamist satellites – like Islamists from the other marginalized regions, they sought to use the Movement to traverse the social divide between center and periphery, sometimes in a manner that challenged the riverain elites that dominated it. In thus deconstructing the notion that Islamic movements are ideologically and socially homogenous, the article contributes a fresh perspective on the debate about Arabization and Islamization in Sudan as well as center–periphery relations in post-colonial contexts.

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

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.

Berridge Willow J. — Hasan al-Turabi : Islamist Politics and Democracy in Sudan

Apres des recherches sur les developpements institutionnels de la police au Soudan entre 1924 et 1989 et un premier ouvrage remarque comparant les soulevements populaires d’octobre 1964 et d’avril 1985 qui mirent respectivement un terme aux regimes militaires d’Ibrāhīm ‛Abbūd (1958-1964) et de Ja‛far Nimayrī (1968-1985), W. J. Berridge s’attaque dans sa derniere publication a la figure controversee d’un des principaux acteurs politiques et intellectuels soudanais de la seconde moitie du XXe s...

The spectre of Hasan al-Turabi and political Islam in Sudan - W. J. Berridge, Hasan al-Turabi: Islamist politics and democracy in Sudan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (hb £75 – 978 1 107 18099 4). 2017, 349 pp. - Steve Howard, Modern Muslims: a Sudan memoir. Athens OH: Ohio University Press (pb US$26.95 – 978 0 8214 2231 1). 2016, 217

The spectre of Hasan al-Turabi and political Islam in Sudan - W. J. Berridge, Hasan al-Turabi: Islamist politics and democracy in Sudan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (hb £75 – 978 1 107 18099 4). 2017, 349 pp. - Steve Howard, Modern Muslims: a Sudan memoir. Athens OH: Ohio University Press (pb US$26.95 – 978 0 8214 2231 1). 2016, 217

Narsisme Ulama: Dilema dan Posibilitas Rekonstruksi Ushul Fiqh di Indonesia

<p>This paper describe the construction of the <em>uṣūl al-fiqh</em> initiated by Hasan al-Turabi that be dialogued with the religious conditions in Indonesia. Its aim is to find the possibility and inventory the constraints of the reconstruction of the <em>uṣūl al-fiqh</em> in Indonesia. This study uses the hermeneutical method of Paul Ricoeur in analyzing the theoretical ideas of Hasan al-Turabi. In this study found the biggest dilemma of reconstruction of <em>uṣūl al-fiqh</em> in Indonesia: the narcissism of scholars and egoism of intellectuals. Apart from that, there are conditional possibilities found, in order to reconstruct <em>uṣūl al-fiqh </em> in Indonesia, i.e.: 1) willingness, facilities, protection and consis­tency of the government, and 2) the inclusiveness of traditional clerics in order to create a dialogue on the traditional jurisprudence understood by them with the modern scholars and experts of various sciences. The author concluded that only the integration of modern sciences with the traditional Islamic jurisprudence, that <em>uṣūl al-fiqh</em> re­con­struction could be implemented in Indonesia.</p>

J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins. Sudan in Turmoil: Hasan al-Turabi and the Islamist State, 1989–2003. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2010, $28.95. 340 pp. including bibliography, 1 map, and index.

J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins. Sudan in Turmoil: Hasan al-Turabi and the Islamist State, 1989–2003. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2010, $28.95. 340 pp. including bibliography, 1 map, and index.

The Sudans in The Twenty-First Century

Joseph O. Abulemoi. The Fragility of Sudan: A Study of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. London: Janus, 2011. xxvi + 340 pp. Acknowledgments. Abstract. Maps. Bibliography. Apendixes. £16.95. Paper. J. Millar Burr and Robert O. Collins. Sudan in Turmoil: Hasan al-Turabi and the Islamist State. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener, 2010. vxiii + 340 pp. Map. Abbreviations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $89.95. Cloth. $28.95. Paper. Elke Grawert, ed. After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan. Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Rochester, N.Y.: James Currey, 2010. xvi + 293 pp. Tables. Figures. Maps. Editor's Preface. Notes on Contributors. Bibliography. Index. $70.00. Cloth. Randall Fegley. Beyond Khartoum: A History of Subnational Government in Sudan. Trenton, N.J., and Asmara: Red Sea Press, 201 1 . xix + 395 pp. Figures. Maps. Tables. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index. $34.95. Paper. Abdullahi A. Gallab. A Civil Society Deferred: The Tertiary Grip of Violence in the Sudan. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 201 1. xxiii + 239 pp. Preface. Acknowledgments. Note on Transliteration. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $74.95. Cloth. Douglas H. Johnson. The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars: Peace or Truce. Revised edition. Oxford: James Currey, 201 1. xx + 236 pp. List of Abbreviations. List of Maps. Preface. Bibliography. Index. Appendix. $29.95. Paper. John RyIe, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo, and Jok Madut Jok, eds. The Sudan Handbook. Oxford: James Currey, 201 1 . xx + 220 pp. Maps. Figures. Tables. Notes on Contributors. Acknowledgments. Glossary. Chronology. Index. $34.95. Paper. Many recent books on Sudanese history and politics have fallen into two broad categories: analyses of the Sudan's problems (what may be called Failed State Studies), and more specifically, accounts of the civil war that ended in 2005 and led to the independence of South Sudan in 2011. The seven books reviewed here (with one partial exception) fall into one or another of these categories or straddle them. As such they share attributes and defects, but in representing recent scholarship they are notewordiy too in pointing to marked change in the focus of academic interest and in the approaches concomitantiy eschewed and permitted by that change. For various reasons (most worthy of attention themselves), Golden Age in historical writing on the modern Sudan ended in the 1970s. Although much of lasting importance has appeared since then (and several historians have produced superb bodies of work), the ability of Sudanese and foreign scholars to conduct original research in Sudanese archives, and the scarcity of expert supervision of postgraduate study in the Sudan and elsewhere, have in part been responsible for this decline. Originality has suffered as well-worn themes have been repeatedly reworked, often badly (the AngloEgyptian conquest of 1896-98; the regime of Lord Cromer; colonial education policy; the Juba Conference; the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement, etc.). Overall quality has been diminished by shoddy or inexpert supervision in European and American universities. For political, financial, and other reasons, good Sudanese historians and promising Sudanese students have abandoned the field. In general, the result has been the substitution of deadline-driven ephemera for studies of modern history, and the deracination of political or sociological studies from history. It might be expected that the dearth of modern historical textbooks makes The Sudan Handbook welcome addition to the literature. Proceeding from an annual Sudan Course held at the Senior Secondary School at Rumbek under the auspices of the Rift Valley Institute, the book is meant as a critical guide to current knowledge. This, at least, it is not. Of as uneven quality as one would expect of volume with four editors and score of contributors, the book is medley rather than summary and critique. None of the chapters is original, although one (Wendy James's Religious Practice and Belief), is real essay with beginning and an end and is gem of concision. …

Democratizing Islam and Islamizing Democracy – An Inquiry into Hasan al-Turabi’s Conception of Shura in Light of Western Democratic Theory

Democratizing Islam and Islamizing Democracy – An Inquiry into Hasan al-Turabi’s Conception of Shura in Light of Western Democratic Theory

Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt & Sudan

This article compares the evidence from two related movements: the contemporary Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the cluster of organisations that have been closely associated with Hasan al-Turabi in Sudan, in order to query the extent to which Islamism is compatible with liberal democratic politics. The answers suggested are, in the Egyptian case, hopeful, but for Sudan decidedly pessimistic. However, there are complexities within both stories. The comparison indicates ways in which the outcomes are related to the framing circumstances, but also points out the limitations of the information currently available in the academic literature.

BOOK REVIEW: de Waal, Alex, ed. ISLAMISM AND ITS ENEMIES IN THE HORN OF AFRICA. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.

Reviewed by: Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa Lidwien Kapteijns de Waal, Alex , ed. 2004. Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. xiv, 279 pp. $60.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper). The subject of this edited volume is militant Islamism, especially its neofundamentalist, jihadist variant in Northeast Africa. There are four contributors to this book, but its unifying vision is that of the editor, who wrote and coauthored five of the seven chapters. Drawing on his long-standing and critical engagement with local human-rights issues and activists and intellectuals from the region, he has produced a highly informative and insightful book of great relevance to current affairs. After an introductory chapter explaining the book's focus, chapter 2, "On the Failure and Persistence of Jihad," by Abdel Salam and de Waal, traces the history of Sunni militant Islamism from Egypt's Sayyid Qutb (executed in 1964) onward. The authors focus on what they see as a neofundamentalist stage and brand of Islamism, which is even more authoritarian, anti-intellectual, intolerant, and anti-Western than its parent, and is characterized by a commitment to violent jihad. They associate this ideology with particular thinkers, including the chameleonlike and highly opportunistic Sudanese jurist Hasan al-Turabi. In spite of Turabi's oral and written rejection of such a neofundamentalist agenda, it is this ideology that has inspired and justified the violent excesses committed by Sudan's Islamist government in the civil war it has fought primarily against Sudan's south (and is still waging in Darfur). In Egypt, where the security forces suppressed a militant uprising in the 1990s, Mubarak's government has nevertheless gradually accommodated neofundamentalist Islamism to such an extent that cultural and intellectual life and many remaining political freedoms have been, and are being, violently stifled. This analysis of the emergence of neofundamentalist Sunni Islamism forms the backdrop to the two core chapters of the book, both on the Sudan. Chapter 3, by de Waal and Abdel Salam, tells the story of how militant Islamism came to dominate the Sudanese government with the coup of 1989, and traces the consequences and excesses of this regime, including its brutal program of "comprehensive da'wa"—a totalitarian and ethnocidal experiment, if ever there was one—and its "civilizational project," based on a deeply racist and Arab-Islamic supremacist mind-set. Chapter 6 analyzes the foreign relations of Sudan's jihadist government in the region. Mengistu's Ethiopia and Museveni's Uganda were its implacable enemies, and all three regimes actively supported each other's domestic opposition movements, the SPLA in Sudan, the Eritrean EPLF in Ethiopia, and the LRA and ADF in Uganda; however, after the defeat of Mengistu's Ethiopia and, especially, the failed assassination attempt on President Mubarak in Addis Ababa in June 1995, Sudan's front-line states (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Rwanda) allied against the Sudan. Had they—and the United States—been quick enough, Sudan's Islamist government would have fallen right then, [End Page 122] but the outbreak of war between Ethiopia and Eritrea in May 1998 caused the alliance to fall apart and ended Sudan's political isolation. Sudan's willingness to help the United States fight international Islamist terrorism has further remedied its international position. Chapter 4, by Roland Marchal, deals with "Islamic Political Dynamics in the Somali Civil War." First produced for a conference in 2001, it is an important, but not fully successful, attempt at cataloguing Islamist movements in Somalia, especially al-Ittihad al-Islami and al-Barakat, the financial institution closed down by the United States after 9/11. Although Marchal acknowledges the reality—or is it the possibility?—of al-Ittihad's links to al-Qa'ida, especially in the East African embassy bombings of 1998, he argues that Islamism in Somalia does not have an autonomous power base and is subject to more powerful local political dynamics, such as those based on clan politics. This thesis is illustrated by two fascinating case-studies—based on fieldwork in challenging circumstances—of experiments with Islamic courts in northern and southern Mogadishu. Though Marchal's analysis of the civil war and the...

Power or Ideology

Power or Ideology

Power or Ideology

Power or Ideology

Revolutionary Sudan: Hasan al-Turabi and the Islamist state, 1989-2000

This volume investigates the objectives, activities and a decade of success and failure by Islamist military officers and civilians to create the first Islamic government in Africa after the coup d'etat by Brigadier Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir. It describes and analyses the role played by Hasan al-Turabi in the Sudan, the world and the revolutionary government from its relative isolation on the frontiers of Islam and the margins of the Arab world. It follows the activities of this ideological and activist leader of the revolution who used his influence as a charismatic Muslim scholar to precipitate an Islamic revolution until his downfall and expulsion from government in 2000 by those who he had hoped to mould to his Islamist ideologies.

The First Islamist Republic: Development and Disintegration of Islamism in the Sudan (review)

In this careful and engagingly written analysis of Hasan al-Turabi's decade in power, Abdullahi A. Gallab concludes that the experience of Sudan during the first Islamist republic (1989-99) serves as a warning against ideological entrapments (p. 167) of all kinds, and leads to the realization that Islamism, like all other isms, can be and should be contested (p. ix). Drawing upon extensive interviews with Sudanese Islamists, as well as upon Arabic and English studies, Gallab summarizes the Islamist experiment in dismal terms. He variously calls it a reign of terror, a trauma, a source of despair, an open-ended system of oppression, the product of a wide range of deceits, a vehicle for the violent suppression of other religious systems and political voices, and a charade (pp. 4, 15, 78, 137). In Gallab's account, Turabi emerges as a manipulator and a megalomaniac (albeit a suave one) who entertained the creation of a personality cult (p. 112) around him. Disciplines Islamic World and Near East History | Near and Middle Eastern Studies | Near Eastern Languages and Societies | Political History

Makers of Contemporary Islam

This book examines the development of contemporary Islamic movements and thought through the biographies of nine major activist intellectuals whose work povides the core of what the Islamic resurgence became in the 1990s, and is an important foundation for what it can become in the 21st century. By profiling nine such internationally recognised figures this volume provides a new understanding of the intellectual foundations of contemporary Islamic awareness and politics. The nine figures covered are: Ismail al-Faruqi, Khurshid Ahmad, Maryam Jameelah, Hasan Hanafi, Rashid Ghannoushi, Hasan al-Turabi, Abdol Karim Soroush, Anwar Ibrahim, and Abdurrahman Wahid. These nine have contributed to some of the most significant intellectual and activist developments in the Muslim world during the 1980s and 1990s - the period during which Islamic movements became a major force in Muslim societies and international affairs. They represent a distinctive phase in the evolution of Islamic thinking: the ongoing effort to create an effective synthesis of modernity and Islamic tradition.

AHMAD S. MOUSSALLI, Moderate and Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Quest for Modernity, Legitimacy, and the Islamic State (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999). Pp. 249. $49.95/cloth.

This is the slyest, and therefore smartest, assessment of Islamic fundamentalism currently available. The author, a prolific Lebanese political theorist, has offered in this, his fourth monograph on the subject, a well-argued, highly original thesis. Moussalli asks one basic question: does Islamic fundamentalism have a philosophical basis? “Yes, it does,” he replies, “but it is not the same basis for all Islamic fundamentalists.” He then proceeds to demonstrate how particular Islamic fundamentalist theorists have addressed issues such as ideology and knowledge, society and politics, from their own philosophical perspective. The argument is markedly tilted toward politics, as each of the six chapters examines either a facet of political philosophy or the discourse of a particular theorist on the Islamic state. The first three chapters are framed as general overviews, first of the fundamentalism–modernism dyad, then of the epistemological divide between divine revelation and human reason, and finally of the discursive dichotomy between the Islamic state and democratic pluralism. The next three chapters shift to dominant theorists, the three “heroes” of Islamist ideology. Chapter 4 examines Hasan al-Banna on the Islamic state; Chapter 5, Sayyid Qutb. Chapter 6 takes up the most prominent current Islamist: Hasan al-Turabi. Not since Hamid Enayat's Modern Islamic Political Thought (Texas, 1982) has any scholar made such a comprehensive effort to trace the patterns of similarity—and the evidence of conflict and disagreement—among the major ideologues of Islamic fundamentalism.