Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi (1935-2020): A Political And Ideological Leader of Sudan
By Haitham Nouri
1 Dec 2020
Sudan
closed a critical chapter in its history with the death of Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi
from coronavirus last week. Al-Mahdi had led the Ansar Sufi order and the
National Umma Party for six decades.
Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi wrote a
significant chapter in the book of Sudan’s turbulent history.
------
Al-Mahdi
had been a controversial figure, politically and ideologically, since he took
over the leadership from his father, Al-Seddiq Al-Mahdi, in 1961 until his death.
The
political and religious figurehead was known as the Imam of Ansar, whose tribes
stood alongside his grandfather, Al-Imam Al-Mahdi, in his revolt against
Khedive Tawfik in 1881. His revolution succeeded and he took Khartoum and
established the Mahdi state which remained until Sudan’s fall into the hands of
British occupation in 1898.
To the
Sudanese people, he is Al-Sayed Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi, descendant of the most
famous religious family in the country, and to everyone else he is the last
prime minister of an elected government to this day, until the Islamists staged
a military coup led by now toppled president Omar Al-Bashir in June 1989.
Al-Sadiq
Al-Mahdi’s life had always been rife with complications and controversy. His
education began in seclusion, which is traditional for memorising the Quran and
learning reading and writing. His wealthy family enrolled him in a regular
education school, Al-Ahfad, which was a famous civil school. Then they moved
him to Al-Kamboni, a missionary educational institution associated in Sudan
with the graduation of the elite of southern Sudan, before his grandfather
Al-Imam Abdul-Rahman Al-Mahdi sent him to Victoria College in Alexandria.
Al-Mahdi
left Victoria College after his second year there, while his school friends
included a number of Arab princes and wealthy people, such as the late king
Hussein of Jordan and international actor Omar Sharif. Al-Mahdi said his
decision was based on the students’ dissociation from their Arab and Islamic
heritage, as recounted in interview with Al-Ahram Weekly.
Rejecting
regular education, Al-Mahdi went back to his family’s house in Omdurman, the
national capital of Sudan, where he was educated by Sheikh Al-Tayeb Al-Sarrag,
one of the most prominent Arabic language teachers in Sudan.
A famous
Egyptian teacher in Sudan, Thabet Girgis, convinced Al-Mahdi he should pursue
regular schooling, so he enrolled in the Sciences Faculty of Khartoum
University.
Shortly
after, Al-Mahdi enrolled in Oxford University, where he joined the newly created
faculty to study philosophy, politics and economics, later Saint John College.
At Oxford, Al-Mahdi represented his college in tennis and got the chance to
witness British politics up close.
He ignored
his desire to study agriculture in the US and he returned to Sudan to work at
the Ministry of Finance in 1957. He resigned two years later following the coup
staged by Ibrahim Abboud, who became prime minister, and the death of his
grandfather, the famed leader of Ansar.
This was
when Al-Mahdi, who was raised by his father, the staunch opponent of Abboud’s
regime, became a political and religious leader.
Following
his father’s death, he took charge of the National Umma Party, leading a united
front towards the October 1964 revolution that toppled the first military rule.
The
leadership of Ansar went to his uncle Al-Imam Al-Mahdi for a decade. Al-Sadiq
Al-Mahdi was 28 at the time and the law didn’t allow those under 30 years of
age to join parliament. Two years later, he became a parliamentary member
representing Al-Gezira constituency and he competed against Mohamed Al-Mahgoub,
a veteran independence leader, for the premiership.
The close
circle of Al-Mahdi tried to dissuade him from the premiership because he was
young. However, he refused their advice, giving the example of William Pitt,
who became the youngest prime minister of Great Britain at the age of 24 in
1783.
Al-Mahdi
became prime minister for one year before the premiership went back to
Al-Mahgoub who was overthrown by the 1969 coup led by Jaafar Numeiri.
Throughout
the second democracy (1964-1969), Al-Mahdi grew closer to the Islamists and the
Muslim Brotherhood, led by Hassan Al-Turabi who became his brother-in-law. This
Islamist alliance was formed to face the Sudanese Communist Party that enjoyed a
powerful influence among students, labourers and professionals in the 1960s.
The
Islamists and their leader Al-Turabi betrayed Al-Mahdi and overthrew his
government in the 1989 coup that was masterminded by Al-Turabi and executed by
Al-Bashir.
Al-Mahdi’s
differences with his uncle Al-Hadi and Numeiri and his leftist leanings grew
when the latter quelled the revolt of Ansar in south Khartoum in August 1970.
Numeiri killed Al-Hadi and the political and religious leadership came into
Al-Mahdi’s hands, just as it was in his father’s.
Al-Mahdi
became Numeiri’s fiercest opponent until national reconciliation between them
in January 1977.
Throughout
the 1970s, Al-Mahdi’s intellectual prowess emerged. He wrote a book on
legitimate penalties that is more enlightening than the ideologies of the
Muslim Brotherhood, and to counter their ideas.
Al-Mahdi
wrote more than 100 books and booklets and hundreds of articles and lectures
throughout his life.
The Muslim
Brotherhood manipulated universities, trade and all aspects of life thanks to
funds from the Gulf, which drove Numeiri to appease them by announcing the
application of Islamic Sharia in Sudan in September 1983. Conflicts broke out
in the country and steps towards the fall of the regime accelerated until it
was overthrown in April 1985.
After a
year, Al-Mahdi’s National Umma Party won the majority in the Constituent
Assembly to form a coalition government with its partner the Federal Party. The
Islamists remained the third force and the main opposition party.
Al-Mahdi
became more mature when he assumed the leadership of the government for the
second time. He did not pause before the Mirghani-Garang initiative in 1988 for
peace and halting the civil war, though without mentioning the right to
self-determination for South Sudan.
The
agreement created ire among the Muslim Brotherhood, prompting the group to
accelerate its coup that toppled the government of Al-Mahdi, said Khaled
Mahmoud, an Egyptian journalist who specialises in Sudanese affairs. This was
when Sudan witnessed the bloodiest civil war that led to the independence of
the south in July 2011, after two million people were killed and the
destruction of what remained of the poor country.
In the
1990s, Al-Mahdi grew closer to Egypt, breaking the ice between his people and
Egypt after a century of cold relations.
“Al-Sadiq
warmed our relation with Egypt, which became our country of choice when the
Muslim Brotherhood took control over Sudan,” says Muawiya Hamad Al-Nil, a
lawyer and a prominent figure in the Ansar community.
“In the
1960s, Al-Mahdi grew closer to Egypt when his government agreed to [former
president Gamal Abdel] Nasser’s request for the presence of Egyptian forces in
Sudan after the 1967 War.”
Al-Sadiq
Al-Mahdi, the imam, premier and controversial intellectual, has passed. One
thing is sure, however: he wrote the most significant chapter in Sudan’s
history since its independence in 1956.
Original Headline: Death of a political imam:
Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi (1935-2020)
Source: The English Ahram