, I SLAM S PERFECT STRANGER The life of Mahmud Muhammad Taha, Muslim Reformer of Sudan Edward Thomas I.B.Tauris Publishers Published in 2011 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © Edward Thomas, 2011 The right of Edward Thomas to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. International Library of African Studies 26 ISBN: 978 1 844885 0044 0 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress catalog card: available Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham from camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author Typeset in Garamond by Vibhu Mishra Dedicated with love to my parents Contents Acknowledgements ix Transliteration xi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Remembering childhood 7 Chapter 2 Sudan from 1500–1900 16 Chapter 3 Escaping the village shop 36 Chapter 4 Training an effendi 44 Chapter 5 Starting work and getting married 55 Chapter 6 The Republican party 64 Chapter 7 Taking the lift to the fields of heaven 79 Chapter 8 Giving up abstinence 92 Chapter 9 Independence for the elite 106 Chapter 10 Battle lines 117 Chapter 11 Glorious October 126 Chapter 12 Pyramids 142 Chapter 13 Modern Sufi 166 Chapter 14 Romancing Sudan 180 Chapter 15 Perfect stranger 190 Chapter 16 The perfect ending 203 Chapter 17 Aftermath 220 Endnotes 236 Appendix 1 Constitution of the Republican Party 259 Glossary of non-English Terms 260 Acronyms 264 Bibliography 265 Index 276 Acknowledgements People who knew Mahmud Muhammad Taha generously committed their memories to me; I am extremely grateful to everyone who spent time answering my questions: ‘Abdallah al-Dabi, Professor Abdullahi An-Na‘im, Dr ‘Abdelwahab El-Affendi, ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Ali al-Shaykh, Ahmed Omer, Dr Al-Baqir Mukhtar, ‘Ali Lutfi, Amna Muhammad Lutfi, Asma Mahmud, ‘Awatif ‘Abd al-Gadir, Batoul Mukhtar, Bona Malwal, Eltayeb Hassan, El-Nour Hamad, Fatma Ibrahim, Fatma Yusuf Gway, Dr Girgis Iskander, Ibrahim Yusuf, Khalid Muhammad al-Hasan, Mahmud Amin Siddig, Mona Zanoon, Muhammad ‘Abd al-Khalig, Muhammad ‘Ali Malik, Muhammad al-Fatih, Mudawi Turabi, Omer El Garrai, Saadia ‘Izz al-Din, al-Hajja Sayyida Muhammad Lutfi, Dr Steve Howard, Yusuf Hasan, Yusuf Lutfi, as well as other people who preferred not to be mentioned. Asma Mahmud, El-nour Hamad and Abdullahi An-Na‘im spent several days on my questions. Girgis Iskander was willing to spend hours of his time thinking about my questions and composing long, precise responses: he even translated an entire book to save me time and bother. Al-Baqir Mukhtar and Eltayeb Hassan, completing their doctorates on Republican thought in England, were unfailingly generous with advice and suggestions. Gerhard Lichtenthaler, Jurgen Rogalski and Haydar Ibrahim Ali helped me find copies of Taha’s works. Al- Baqir Mukhtar and Girgis Iskander read this book for me before it was submitted. This book began as a thesis written at Edinburgh University. I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Spalding Trust, which paid for my fees and the Carnegie Trust which funded a field trip. I am very grateful to them both.