PART ONE SUDAN: “TOTAL SHARĪʿA” Osman Mohamed Osman Ali - 9789004262126 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:21:09AM via free access Map 2 Map of Sudan: Showing principal places referred to in Part One Osman Mohamed Osman Ali - 9789004262126 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:21:09AM via free access CHAPTER TWO “SHARĪʿA AND REALITY”: A DOMAIN OF CONTEST AMONG SUNNI MUSLIMS IN THE DISTRICT OF SHENDI, NORTHERN SUDAN Osman Mohamed Osman Ali Introduction This chapter examines the way in which some Muslim groups in Northern Sudan take opposite sides over the issues of sharīʿa and reality. It consid- ers the Muslim diversity in Northern Sudan to be an argument that any attempt to implement the sharīʿa will be fraught with conflict. This prem- ise is supported by field data from the urban and rural communities of the District of Shendi (Arab.: muḥāfaẓat Shandī),1 which represents the south- ern part of the River Nile State (wilāyat nahr al-Nīl), on the eastern bank of the Nile. These communities are multicultural, multiethnic and inclusive of some Muslim and Christian religious groups.2 The existence of Shendi town in between the villages of the north and the south, the natural envi- ronment, the economic activities, the kinship ties, and other aspects, all distinguish four subcultures in the District of Shendi: that of Shendi town, villages north of Shendi town, villages south of Shendi town, and nomads’ camps. The Muslim groups (i.e., the Republican Brothers, the Sufis, the Anṣār al-Mahdī, the Anṣār al-Sunna, and the Islamic Movement), which are all Sunni, are found here and there within these subcultures, includ- ing both males and females in their memberships.3 As there were no other Muslim groups in this region during the time of the research, the discus- sions in this chapter are restricted to these groups. Dividing the Muslims into these groups in the District of Shendi has been in response to their self-identification, as the boundaries among these groups are clear in the 1 Fieldwork for collecting these data was done in 2002 and then updated in 2008, just before writing and finalising this chapter. 2 Ali, O. M. O., ‘Death-related Beliefs and Practices, an Area of Conflict in a Multicultural Community: Rural Shendi’, M.Sc Thesis, University of Khartoum, 1994, pages 1–2. 3 Ali, O. M. O., ‘The Dynamics of Interpretation of Textual Islam in Northern Sudan: Case Study among the Rural and Urban Population of Shendi Province’, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Khartoum, 2004, pages 202–203. © Osman Mohamed Osman Ali, 2014 | doi:10.1163/9789004262126_003Osman Mohamed Osman Ali - 9789004262126 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NCDownloaded 4.0 license. from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:21:09AM via free access 14 osman mohamed osman ali region. Importantly, as expressed by many Sufi informants, there are no essential differences among the various Sufi orders as regarding their teach- ings and cardinal rituals. They all adhere to both the Islamic sharīʿa and voluntary or optional religious services, and follow the same one path that is believed to lead to the Prophet Muḥammad, and ultimately, God. Even in their literature, the Sufi Sheikhs constantly urge their followers to assist and show respect and love to the followers of all the Sufi orders. For these reasons, all the Sufi groups have good, friendly relations with each other and cooperate in their religious activities and festivals. Building upon this, the Sufis are taken as a homogenous group in this chapter. Also, the Anṣār al-Mahdī feel an intimate relationship between the Sufi and Mahdist schools of thought. They utter not a single criticism against the Sufis. They respect the Sufis and think of them as following the right way, as they do. However, they state that the imām al-mahdī had been a Sufi disciple for a long time before he declared the Mahdiship. He presented his own legal rules and judgements only after that declaration. He then invited Sufis who were his contemporaries (including the Sufi Sheikhs) to follow him and criticized many of their manners of conduct, which he considered as not conforming to the Islamic religion. It is only for these reasons that the Anṣār al-Mahdī regard themselves as distinct from the Sufis who are presently existing in the District of Shendi, as do the Sufis in their feelings towards the Anṣār al-Mahdī. The District of Shendi, due to the above considerations and for other rea- sons, is worthy of being described as a miniature representation of Northern Sudan. That is to say, this chapter deals with the philosophical underpinnings of the above-mentioned Sunni Muslim groups in the District of Shendi, but of course this has implications for the whole of Northern Sudan. Historically speaking, in the centuries known in Europe as the Middle Ages, the north- ern region of Sudan was divided into three kingdoms: Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia. Between these kingdoms and the Red Sea lay the Beja country.4 The introduction of Christianity into these kingdoms in the sixth century marked a new era. Christianity was adopted to such an extent that it became the state religion.5 With the fall of Egypt into the hands of the Muslims, preparations began for the conquest of Sudan. By 652 Islamic forces invaded Makuria, the northern kingdom, which defeated the invad- ers decisively and for six centuries thereafter was able to impose its own 4 Hasan, Yusuf Fadl, ‘The Penetration of Islam in the Eastern Sudan’, in Islam in Tropical Africa, Lewis, I. M. (ed.), London: Oxford University Press, 1966, pages 144–159, (page 144). 5 Hasan, 1966, pages 144–145. Osman Mohamed Osman Ali - 9789004262126 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:21:09AM via free access “sharīʿa and reality” 15 terms upon relations with the Muslim world. The Muslim forces, then, turned their acquisitive attentions eastward towards the Beja. Raids were undertaken to impose tribute upon nearby chiefs and open their country to Muslim traders. In years to come, many immigrant Arabs would be absorbed into the northern Beja lineages, creating mixed-descent com- munities that were recognized as the first Beja Muslims.6 After a time, many Arabs drifted towards Alodia, the southern kingdom, which by the twelfth century began to break up.7 Then, hostilities between Makuria and Muslims began to erupt. In 1276 an Islamic force conquered Makuria and, under the terms of settlement, its people were allowed to keep their religion as protected persons under sharīʿa and were to be governed via a puppet king chosen by the conquerors. In 1324 Muslims seized the throne from the old dynasty.8 Over the next few centuries, renewed centripetal social forces restored royal rule to the Nile and introduced a form of state government to the western highlands. Thenceforth, the Sudanese king- doms were lands of Islam.9 It was the influence of traders and Muslim holy men that finally won the victory for Islamic culture in Northern Sudan. The holy men trans- mitted the version of Islam known as Sufism. The more charismatic of them bonded with their followers into orders (Arab.: ṭarīqa / ṭuruq). The coming of the ṭuruq into Northern Sudan can be divided into two stages. The first, which may be dated from about the 16th century, began with the recruitment of some holy men into the decentralized “ancient” ṭuruq, the Qādiriyya and the Shādhiliyya. The second stage took place in the 18th and 19th centuries when the country came to be dominated by a number of centralized reformist ṭuruq, namely, the Sammāniyya, the Khatmiyya, the Idrīsiyya and the Tijāniyya.10 In 1881, a Sufi leader by the name Muḥammad Aḥmad proclaimed his mission as imām al-mahdī (Arab.: divinely guided leader). He called upon people to fight against the Turks who, because of their impiety and oppression, were unbelievers. By the time of his death in 1885, the Mahdist forces controlled most of northern Sudan and began to establish a centralized state based on principles of rule defined 6 Spaulding, Jay, ‘Precolonial Islam in Eastern Sudan’, in The History of Islam in Africa, Levtzion, Nehemia & Pouwels, Randall L. (eds.), Oxford: James Currey Ltd, 2000, pages 117–118. 7 Hasan, 1966, page 151. 8 Spaulding, 2000, pages 118–119. 9 Spaulding, 2000, pages 119–120. 10 Karrar, A. S., The Sufi Brotherhoods in the Sudan, London: Hurst & Company, 1992, pages 1, 20. Osman Mohamed Osman Ali - 9789004262126 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:21:09AM via free access 16 osman mohamed osman ali by al-mahdī. The followers of al-mahdī, the Anṣār al-Mahdī, did not dis- appear when the Anglo-Egyptian army conquered the Mahdist state in 1898–99. In the 20th century, they emerged as the largest organized group in Sudan.11 One important new element in Sudan was the emergence of a significant Islamic grouping: the Muslim Brotherhood (Arab.: al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn), which began as a student organization in the 1940s and had some following among urban intellectuals and professionals.12 One more Muslim group in Sudan was the Republican Brothers (Arab.: al-Ikhwān al-Jumhūriyyūn), which was founded by Maḥmūd Muḥammad Ṭaha in 1945. The Republican Brothers aim at constructing a new civilization that is based on the Qurʾān.13 The different Muslim groups, except the Sufis, con- sider the Republican Brothers as the most genuine Sufi group in Northern Sudan. A recent Muslim group in Northern Sudan is Anṣār al-Sunna, which calls for the revival of the traditions of the Prophet Muḥammad. Their simple version of Islam is akin to that of the Wahhābiyya, the influential followers of the dominant religious doctrine in Saudi Arabia.14 It is worth mentioning here that the word ‘reality’ is used in the pres- ent chapter with two different meanings.