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May 18, 2006

Sudan: Islamist Leader Calls For "Popular Uprising"

We described on January 30 how the Islamist leader of Sudan's opposition Popular Congress Party claimed that he always supported freedom in his nation. At the same time, he praised Osama bin Laden and said he was not a terrorist. Turabi had given shelter to bin Laden between 1991 and 1996, while he was still a political friend of the dictator Omar Al-Bashir. He claimed that bin Laden had not been behind the 9/11 attacks. Turabi also gave shelter to international terrorist Carlos "the Jackal".

Today's Asharq Al-Aswat reports that Turabi is now calling for a popular resistance against his former colleagues in the Sudanese regime, to bring about the downfall of the government.

Last month, on April 11, Turabi broke from his traditional support of sharia (Islamic) law, which he had helped to impose on non-Muslims in the south. Between 1989, when Bashir came to power through a coup, and 1991, when sharia law was lifted from the south, Turabi attempted to establish a nation based on Medina in the 7th century. The imposition of sharia upon the 10 million non-Muslims in Sudan, most of whom lived in the south, led to an armed uprising, and ultimately, a plan for potential independence in this region. On Saturday October 23 2005 , a new semi-autonomous government was formed in the south, led by Salva Kiir.

Turabi had announced in a lecture entitled "The Role of Women in Just Governance" last month that the original concept of the hijab (headscarf) was meant to cover women's breasts, not to wrap the head, face or entire body. He also said that if women were more knowledgeable in the Koran or Hadith than men in a congregation, they were entitled to lead prayers at the front. Turabi cited the case of the so-called prophet Mohammed granting permission for a Muslim woman to lead her family, including men, in prayers. He also said that Aisha, Mohammed's child-bride, grew up to be well-versed in the Quran than most of her male contemporaries, and often led prayers.

He also said it was permissable for a woman to marry a Christian or a Jew, saying that earlier prohibitions stemmed from doctrines preached at a time of war.

Turabi said that contrary to sharia tradition, the testimony of a woman was not worth half that of a man, and in a direct contradiction of Mohammed's dictums, he said that it was not a crime to consume alcohol unless it led to a hostile act.

These comments were regarded as heresy by man of Sudan's Islamic scholars, who proposed having Turabi tried as an apostate.

Turabi has spent much of the past five years in and out of jail. He has been accused of trying to mount a coup against Bashir, being jailed for this in March 2004. He fell out with his former ally Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 1999, and since then has been attempting to build his own power-base. He formed the Popular Congress Party in 2000. He was released from jail on the charges connected with his attempted coup in June last year.

His comments in favour of women's rights last month were a rather obvious ploy to broaden his appeal, and appear as a "man of the people".

Turabi was born in 1932 in Kassala, northern Sudan, to a Sufi Muslim sheikh. He arrived in Khartoum in 1951 to study law. SInce then he was educated in London in Paris, where he gained a PhD from the Sorbonne in Paris.

Turabi is still a supporter of Egyptian-based Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood. Turabi joined this group in the 1950s, and during the 1960s, while Sayeed Qutb, the luminary who took the Brotherhood down the road of violence and armed jihad, was in jail (he was eventually executed), Turabi even became a leader of this group. He was secretary-general of the Islamic Charter Front, a political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1964. Following a government coup in Egypt in 1969, Turabi was jailed. In 1975, he escaped, and stayed in exile in Libya for three more years.

In 1979, Turabi became Sudan's attorney general, but in the early 1980s he was tried on sedition charges, and jailed with other members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Upon his release, he became a member of the government in May 1988. He became deputy Prime Minister in 1989, but resigned when a peace agreement with rebels from the south endorsed secularism. When Bashir assumed power that year, Turabi was imprisoned, but then became the dictator's ally, assisting in the implementation of Islamic rule across Sudan.

In an account of Turabi's life from 2004, extracts from an interview are quoted, in which he states that problems in Sudan are caused by a lack of sharia law. He justified sharia by saying that sharia provided justice and fairness for all. He said: "Awakened Islam today provides people with a sense of identity and a direction in life, something shattered in Africa since colonialism. In the African context in particular, it offers a sense of common allegiance."

In Asharq Al-Aswat today, Turabi is said to have condemned the Abuja peace agreement, signed in the troubled region of Darfur earlier this week. He said the agreement lacked a legitimate basis. He said that the agreement happened only because the US forced the issue. He said that the government of Sudan now listens to America, which he described as "lord of the earth", rather than listening to "Allah, lord of the skies."

Turabi said yesterday that the regime in Sudan will not fall "unless the people will replace it - not to the benefit of any regime or party, but to the benefit of all."

Turabi's current calls for an insurrection though implementation of the "popular will" seem designed to further his own political ends. A brief look at his history shows that he has been prepared to make deals and totally contradict his stated beliefs. In the south of Sudan under the sharia laws which he implemented, Christian women received 60 lashes for brewing alcohol. Now he states that alcohol is not haram.

One thing is certain. Turabi should never be trusted.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at May 18, 2006 3:30 PM

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