Shari’a politics in Khartoum
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By Magdi El Gizouli
August 24, 2011 — The Khartoum press reported on 23 August that a
number of Islamist groups had declared a new political alliance dubbed
the ‘Islamic Constitution Front’ with the sole aim of propagating
strict adherence to shari’a and the constitutional enactment thereof
in post-secession (North) Sudan. Apart from the vocal Just Peace Forum
(JPF) headed by President Bashir’s uncle and the chief of al-Intibaha,
al-Tayeb Mustafa, the signatories included the Wahhabi Ansar al-Sunna,
the Moslem Brothers, the Moslem Forces Union and the Moslem Clerics
Association, in essence all the strictly speaking Islamist forces
other than the mainstream Islamic Movement of old, split since 1998
into President Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) and Hassan
al-Turabi’s Popular Congress Party (PCP). The chief of Ansar al-Sunna,
Abu Zaid Mohamed Hamza, was named Chairman of the new front and the
veteran guardian of the Moslem Brothers, Sadiq Abdalla Abd al-Majid,
its Secretary General. A fortnight ago, on 10 August, Vice President
Taha had outspokenly affirmed the government’s commitment to the
establishment of a “just Islamic order” while addressing the annual
Ramadan breakfast of the Ansar al-Sunna brotherhood in Khartoum.
Separately, the official Sudan Clerical Board, a fatwa body attached
to the Presidency, submitted on 15 August a memorandum to the Speaker
of the National Assembly, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir, detailing its
‘vision’ for the new constitution. Speaking on the occasion, the
chairman of the board, Mohamed Osman Salih, told reporters that the
experiment of Islamic rule had not been free of faults and omissions
and requires a reinvigorating “reform”.
With the hint of Vice President Taha’s declaration the usually
politically quiescent sheikhs of the extra-NCP Islamist spectrum were
apparently invited into the playground of power and offered a
calculated space to occupy. Both the Ansar al-Sunna and the Moslem
Brothers had suffered internal divisions and factional strife over
their relationship with the NCP. The two sheikhs named above, Hamza
and Abdel Majid, are the heads of the factions that chose to ally with
the NCP against fierce criticism from their comrades in Islam who
doubted the NCP’s Islamic credentials and denounced its perceived lax
implementation of shari’a. The political muscle of extra-NCP political
Islam, in particular the orthodox Salafi camp, is nevertheless a
factor to consider. Over the past few years organisationally loose but
ideologically stringent student associations such as the ‘Union of
Moslem Forces’ have become a bloc to reckon with in Khartoum’s
universities. Outside the campuses they have remained largely shy when
it comes to immediate power questions, except in the instances when
the NCP seeks their political clout. Throughout the period of the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) the Moslem Clerics Association and
its aggressive spokesman, Mohamed Abd al-Karim, targeted the Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) with surgical fatwas and
government-sanctioned Friday demonstrations designed to counter its
possible political ascendancy in the Sudanese heartland. An oft quoted
fatwa issued by the Association declared Moslem adherents of the SPLM
outright apostates on the grounds of its agitation against the
imposition of shari’a laws.
The NCP’s preferred jumpsuit into the future of the rump (North) Sudan
remains an alliance by engulfment with the National Umma Party (NUP)
and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the two traditional sectarian
business networks of the old Sudan. Lately, President Bashir actually
spelled out his fantasy, a new mega-party uniting the three under the
eerie title, the Umma Unionist Congress. Rightfully, the President
noted that the three parties, the NUP, the DUP, and the NCP’s
ancestor, the National Islamic Front (NIF), had echoed each other in
terms of programmes in the 1986 elections. Short of such safety the
NCP is ever ready to tap its more extreme flanks whenever need be. The
JPF served the objective of reconciling public opinion in the North
with the secession of South Sudan through racist propaganda. The tame
sheikhs of orthodoxy are now invited to set the maxims of political
debate against contending forces including Sadiq al-Mahdi and his soft
shari’a. The game of the NCP is to emerge as a reasonable arbitrator
representing the pious majority. It is by no means a safe one though;
the fatwa it can buy today it may not afford tomorrow.
The author is a fellow of the Rift Valley Institute. He publishes
regular opinion articles and analyses at his blog Still Sudan. He can
be reached at [email protected]
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