Mahmoud Mohamed Taha

Mahmoud Mohamed Taha (1909 – January 18 1985) was a Sudanese political figure and theologian. Taha played a prominent role in Sudan's struggle for independence, and was a cofounder of the Sudanese Republican Party. He was notable for his advocacy of liberal reform within Sudanese society and within Islam itself. The regime of Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry executed Taha for his views.

Early life

Taha was born in 1909 in Rufa'a, a small town on the east bank of the Blue Nile in central Sudan. When his mother, Fatima bint Mahmoud, died around 1915, his father, Muhammad Taha, took his children and moved to Al-Higailieg, a nearby village, where the family worked in farming. Muhammad Taha died around 1920, leaving his four children to be brought up by their aunt in Rufa'a. Taha's aunt allowed the children to continue their education, and Taha completed the extremely competitive educational system of the time. He graduated from the engineering school of Gordon Memorial College, now the University of Khartoum, in 1936. Following a short period of service with Sudan Railways, he resigned and went into private practice in 1941. As an active participant in the nationalist struggle for independence from the beginning of the movement in the late 1930s, Mahmoud was dissatisfied with the participation of the educated devout Muslim elites in that struggle.

Taha and other people who agreed with his criticisms of the nationalist movement formed the Republican Party in October 1945. The organization's publications reflected a strong modernist Islamic orientation, secularism movement. The party's policy of direct and open confrontation with the colonial authorities led to Taha's arrest and subsequent imprisonment in 1946. He was sentenced to one year in prison when he refused to abstain from political activity against the colonial government. However, in response to the mounting protest orchestrated by The Republican Party he was pardoned by the British Governor General and released after fifty days.

Taha did not stay free for long, however. In the same year he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to two years of imprisonment for leading a popular revolt against the British in the town of Rufa'a. Later he described that period in prison: "When I settled in prison I began to realize that I was brought there by my Lord and thence I started my Khalwah with Him". It was during this two years of imprisonment, and a subsequent three years of self-imposed religious seclusion ("khalwa") in his hometown of Rufa'a, that Taha undertook methods of Islamic worship that led to a new understanding of the meaning of the Qur'an. Those methods of worship were mainly prayer and fasting in the way ("tarique") of Muhammad. Although Taha shared the common Muslim belief that all heavenly revelation had ended with the Qur'an, he emphasized that devoted individuals can receive an enlightened understanding of the word and learn from God directly through his word as revealed to Muhammad. In support of this argument, he often cited verse 282 of the second sura of the Qur'an, which states that God teaches the one who is pious and fearful of God. He also cited the hadith that states that the person who acts in accordance with what he or she knows shall be granted by God knowledge of that which he or she does not know.

Dissemination of new philosophy

By the end of his period of seclusion in October 1951, Taha emerged with a comprehensive new conception of Islam. He summed up that understanding in a book that was published in 1952 under the name "This is my Path", or "Qul Hadhihi Sabieli". The Republican Party was then transformed from a political party into an organization devoted to the propagation of Taha's conception of Islam. Those members of the party who wanted to pursue a more secular political role broke away and joined other political parties. For those who remained with the party, the organization became a spiritual movement under the guidance of Taha.

After a short period of service with the Water and Electricity Company in Khartoum, Taha resumed his private practice as an engineer in the early 1950s.

In 1955, just before Sudan achieved independence, Taha published a book titled "Usus Dustour As-Soudan", about his proposals for a Sudanese constitution. He called for a presidential, federal, democratic and socialist Republic. He was opposed to any attempt to apply laws derived from Islamic Sharia. Applying Sharia meant to him to invite the distrust and animosity of the non-Muslim, non-arabized Sudanese citizens of Sudan. An armed rebellion, which had already erupted in 1955 in the south of Sudan, initiated a movement demanding federal rule to the supprt southern SPLM during the civil war.

Shortly after independence, which was granted on the first of January 1956, a committee was formed to write a manuscript for a constitution to be presented for adoption by the National Legislature of Sudan. Taha represented the Republican Party in that committee. A few months later he resigned from that committee citing interference from the executive authority. That committee brought a manuscript for a constitution that was partly derived from Sharia as desired by the traditional religious sectarian parties. Before that manuscript could be adopted by the parliament, a bloodless military coup seized power in November 1958. All the parties, including the Republican Party, were dissolved. Taha wrote a letter to General Abboud, the head of the new regime, advising him to apply the proposals of the Republicans for a democratic, socialist, federal government, and along with the letter included a copy of his book about the constitution. Taha's recommendations were ignored. During the first two years of military rule Taha held lectures publicly. However, his progressive ideas were so intolerable to religious traditionalists that three young students from the republican movement were dismissed from the Islamic Institute of Omdurman for propagating Taha's conception of Islam. Soon after this Taha was prohibited from holding public lectures. Taha then transferred his activities to private houses of members of the movement and their sympathetic friends. He was denied access to the media when he tried to correct allegations he believed false. In the face of the mounting repeated rejections of his secular movements within Islam Taha published his book "The Islam" in 1960.

After Sudan's return to multiparty parliamentary rule, Taha revived his Republican Party to propagate his proposals for social, political and religious reform through public lectures, newspaper articles, and books. In 1966-67 he published three of his most important books: "Tarieq Mohammed", or "Mohammed's Path"; "Risalat Assalat", or "The Message of Prayer"; and "Arrisala Atthaniya min Al-Islam", or "The Second Message of Islam". He was the first man to propose a direct dialog for a peaceful co-existence between the Arab States and the State of Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War between the Arabs and Israel. He addressed that issue in his books "Mushkilat Assharq Al-Awsat", or "The Middle East Problem", and "Al-Tahaddi Alladhi Yuagihu Al-Arab", or "The Challenge Facing the Arabs", both of which were published in 1967. He was mainly opposed to the Arab Nationalism of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, as well as to what he perceived to be the primitive application of Islam in Saudi Arabia and by the Muslim Brotherhood movement in other Arab countries that he despises the most.

The sectarian ruling parties together with the Muslim Brotherhood movement managed to amend the article number 5/2 in the constitution in order to expel communist members of the parliament and dissolve their party in 1965. Despite his opposition to Marxist communism, Taha objected vigorously to the dissolution of the Sudanese Communist Party and he considered that step as a blow to Sudanese democracy.

In November 1968, Taha was accused of "Ridda", or apostasy, a crime punishable by death. He refused to appear before the court, invoking his constitutional right of freedom of thought and expression. Nevertheless, the Khartoum Sharia "Islamic rules" High Court assembled in his absence to investigate allegations made by two "Islamic University teachers" who accused Taha of "Ridda" and demanded the dismantling of his party and movement. The new government banned all political parties, including the Republican Party.

Republicans during the May Regime, 1969-1983

It was quite obvious from the start that the new military regime was influenced and supported by the Communist Party and by the Arab Nationalists. It won a quick support from Egypt, as well as from the socialist block under the leadership of the former Soviet Union. In spite of this, pressure on the Republicans eased after the new government took office and declared its priorities in attaining the goals of the Sudanese Peoples' Revolution of October 1964. One of the first steps that had been welcomed by Taha was the decision to stop the war in the south and the declaration to a seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict. He saw in that regime an intermediary stage likely to protect the Sudanese people from Islamic rule. Taha continued to propagate his views through every available venue until 1973 when the regime of Gaafar Nimeiry banned his public lectures. Taha maintained a non-aggressive approach to Nimeiry's regime, but he also refrained from joining it. Instead the movement continued and intensified its efforts to propagate its new ideology, and this was initially tolerated by the regime.

Movement to liberate women

For most of the remaining years of his life, Taha confined himself to guiding the activities of the organization by then known as the "Republican Brothers", which included a growing number of female members. Both male and female members of the organization continued to propagate the Second Message of Islam despite harassment by some officials and members of the security forces. Since it was crucial to Taha that he should practice what he preached, he tried to establish a community, which applied, as far as possible, the main tenets of his vision of Islam. As a small community within Sudanese society, the Republicans were unable to implement the full scope of their beliefs in the Organization of the Sudanese state, but they strove to lead their personal lives and organize their own community in accordance with those beliefs. In particular, the community largely succeeded in applying the principles of equality between men and women, without discrimination on grounds of sex. Women members participated fully in all the group's activities, and they were often leaders of activist groups on university campuses and in public parks and street corners – a highly controversial practice in the patriarchal Sudanese society. This was such a hallmark of the movement that when the leadership of the organization was detained without charge in mid-1983, four women were among their number.

The group's practice in relation to contracting marriage is illustrative of the members' determination to implement their reform in light of the prevailing social customs.

Growing confrontation with Nimeiry

After Taha's public lectures were banned in 1973, his disciples operated with some difficulty throughout most of Nimeiry's rule. Although their activities were always within the law, their views tended to arouse opposition from traditional and fundamentalist religious and political circles.

Their opponents succeeded at times in applying various administrative and executive mechanisms to obstruct or limit the effectiveness of the Republicans. Denied access to the media, all of which were state-owned at that time, the Republicans had to prepare their own publications and seek unorthodox channels to reach the public. They had to resort, for example, to the use of street corners and public parks to address whoever was willing to stop and listen to what they had to say. The police often intervened to break up those spontaneous public meetings, charging the Republicans conducting the meetings with "breach of the peace" and "disturbance of public tranquility." The Republicans' frequent protests against those infringements of their fundamental constitutional rights were futile. Despite these restrictions, the Republicans supported the regime of President Nimeiry throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s. Their support was forthcoming as long as the regime maintained policies of national unity and refrained from applying Sharia to the detriment of women and non-Muslim Sudanese. The Republicans also believed that the regime of President Nimeiry was preferable to the only available alternative, a sectarian and "fundamentalist" civilian dictatorship. Only after Sharia was imposed by presidential decrees beginning in August of 1983, thereby undermining national unity between the Muslim north and non-Muslim south and leading to harsh and repressive policies in the country as a whole, did the Republicans declare their opposition. In other words, their opposition was prompted by the change in the nature and policies of the regime rather than the 1983 detention of the group's leadership as such. Taha himself had previously been detained together with eight leaders of the group, for one month in 1976-77 without charge for publishing a book criticizing the Wahhabi movement of Saudi Arabia. He had also personally suffered what was in effect a total ban on his public activities since 1973. The group endured those restrictions and harassment for over ten years without opposing the regime of former President Nimeiry.

The immediate or apparent cause of the detention in mid-1983 was a pamphlet issued by the Republicans. It criticized what they perceived to be the failure of the chief of state security, who also happened to be the first vice-president of the republic, to check Islamic fundamentalists' incitement of religious hatred, and abetment of violence against the Republicans and against non-Muslim Sudanese.

In hindsight, however, and in the light of subsequent developments, it would seem that at least the continuation of the leaders' detention, if not the initial sweeping detention order, was motivated by other considerations. A few weeks after their detention, President Nimeiry announced his intention to impose Sharia law. If the Republicans were free, it must have been thought, they would actively oppose that policy, because it contravened their long-held position that there must be radical reform of Sharia prior to its modern implementation. When that policy materialized in a series of enactments starting in August 1983, the Republicans started an opposition campaign with their leadership still in detention. Despite their active opposition to President Nimeiry's policy of imposed Islamization, or perhaps because of that opposition, the Republicans were all released on December 19 1984, after approximately nineteen months in detention without charge. It became apparent later on this ster was a deliberate trap to involve the Republicans in overt acts rendering them liable to prosecution under the new laws. That mass release on December 19 1984, marked the beginning of the sequence of events culminating in the execution of Taha four weeks later. While being aware of those intentions, Taha immediately assumed responsibility for the campaign against President Nimeiry's Islamization policy. Within one week of their release, on December 25thn 1984, a leaflet ("Hatha Aow Al-Tawafan" – "Either This or the Flood") was issued demanding repeal of the new laws and a guarantee of democratic civil liberties under which to debate the principles and process of Islamization.

The initial police reaction to the leaflet was ambivalent, because of the recent mass release of the Republicans. Moreover, the mild language and content of the leaflet itself gave no cause for serious charges under existing laws. Some police districts arrested a few Republicans who were found distributing the leaflet and charged them with the minor offense of breach of the peace under section 127 of the penal code. In some cases, however, police officers actually intervened to instruct an arresting policeman to release a Republican because no offense was committed.

It was at this point that the state minister for criminal affairs intervened and instructed public prosecutors in the three towns of Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North to press charges of sedition, undermining the constitution, inciting unlawful opposition to the government, and disturbing public tranquility under sections 96, 105 and 127A of the Penal Code of 1983, as well as membership in an unlawful organization under section 20 of the State Security Act of 1973. With the charges thereby transformed into capital offenses, ten recently arrested Republicans were to remain in custody, as the new charges permitted no release on bail. On Wednesday, January 2 1985, the four Republicans who were arrested and charged in Omdurman central district were brought to trial before one of the special criminal courts established under the Judiciary Act of 1984.

Taha, accompanied by all the Republicans, men as well as women, marched in a peaceful demonstration to that court. The trial was adjourned, however, because the serious charges required the special sanction of the president of the republic. On Saturday afternoon, January 5, Taha was arrested at his house in Omdurman and charged with the same combination of offenses. On Monday morning, January 7, Taha and the original four Republicans were brought to trial before the special criminal court after sanction for the trial was obtained from the president of the republic. Again the Republicans marched in a peaceful demonstration which was intercepted by the police. The Republicans reacted by sitting on the ground according to Taha's directions. Nevertheless, they were compelled to proceed in smaller groups when it was apparent that the real aim was to divert them from attending the court. It is important to note here that the president's sanction included the directive to add section 458(3) and the penal code to the charges. That section authorized the court to impose any "Hadd" penalty, that is, specific penalty provided for by Sharia, regardless of the lack of statutory penal provision. That section violated the express provisions of Article 70 of the 1973 Constitution, which was still in force at the time.

But because the five accused decided to boycott the trial proceedings because of their objections to the laws under which the court was constituted and purported to act, and also because of their objections to the calibre of the judges presiding in those courts, the unconstitutionality of charges under section 458(3) of the penal code was never discussed at any stage of the case.

In announcing his decision to boycott the proceedings, Taha improvised a strong statement.

Trial and execution

The trial lasted less than two hours. On the first day, Monday, January 7, the only witness for the prosecution, the police officer who interviewed the accused after their arrest, was examined by the public prosecutor and the judge. His testimony lasted about an hour. The witness submitted the only exhibit for the prosecution, the leaflet published by the Republicans on December 25 1984. Since the accused boycotted the trial, there was nothing for the judge to do except pronounce judgment, which he postponed to the next day.

On Tuesday, 8 January, the judge read his judgment, which was largely based on the statements made by the accused for the investigating police officer. The judge stated that the accused held curious and unorthodox views of Islam, which might or might not be valid: according to his knowledge of Islam, the Qur'an may reveal its secrets to men of piety and diligence. Nevertheless, according to the judgment, it was certainly wrong of the accused to discuss those secrets and insights with the public, because that activity could create religious turmoil (Fitna).

Following this discussion of Taha's thought, Taha suggested that the judge had the Islamic offense of apostasy in mind. The judge then suddenly concluded by declaring all five accused guilty of sedition, undermining the constitution, inciting unlawful opposition to the government, disturbing public tranquility, and membership in an unlawful organization. The reasoning of the decision was related to the offense of apostasy, although it never mentioned that offense by name, while the actual charges were brought on sections 96, 105 and 127A of the penal code and section 20 of the State Security Act. There was no attempt in the proceedings to show how the conduct of the accused rendered them culpable under those sections. While violation of section 458(3) of the penal code was mentioned as one of the charges, the judgment made no mention of that section.

The judge then passed the death sentence on all five accused under section 96 of the penal code, while adding the proviso that the accused could be reprieved if they repented and recanted their views. This convinced many that the judge was in fact convicting the accused of apostasy, because under Sharia law repentance and disavowal of the alleged heretic's views are grounds for reprieve. There was no basis for reprieve on such grounds in relation to section 96 of the penal code under which the accused were being sentenced.

In contrast to the trial court, the special court of appeal which reviewed the judgment relied heavily on the apostasy charge, which it specified by name. The special court of appeal confirmed the lower court's finding and sentence of death for all five accused for apostasy as well as the specified sections of the penal code and State Security Act. Holding that Taha was persistent in his apostasy, the court of appeal denied him the opportunity to have his death sentence reprieved through repentance and recanting his views. The Court ruled that the Taha's death sentence was to be carried out immediately. The other four accused were to be allowed one month to reconsider their position. They were told that they would be pardoned if they recanted.

The decision of the special court of appeal was announced on Tuesday, January 15, and the President of the Republic publicly announced his confirmation on Thursday, January 17, and directed Taha's execution to proceed on Friday, January 18. Like the trial court, President Nimeiry based his address to the nation on the theory of apostasy in Sharia law, without mentioning the offense by name, when he confirmed the conviction and sentence on all five accused. The President directed that the other four accused should have only three days to repent and recant or be executed on Sunday, January 20. As President Nimeiry was making his confirmation address through national radio and television on the afternoon of Thursday, January 17 1985, all security forces in the capital were put on full alert. While the police and state security personnel were rounding up Republicans for detention without charge, the armed forces were taking charge of security in and around the central prison in Khartoum North, where the execution was to take place the following morning. Paratroops were moved inside the prison, where a helicopter was kept overnight in order to remove the body after the execution. At dawn on Friday, the largest security operation ever undertaken around the prison was mounted, as authorities checked identities and closely observed the several hundred people who came to watch the public execution scheduled for ten that morning. When Taha was brought up the stairs of the red steel gallows, the hood covering his face was removed for a few minutes. He is reported to have surveyed the crowd with a smile before the hood was replaced for the actual execution. Following the execution by hanging, the body was brought down, placed on a stretcher, and covered with an old blanket. Then it was taken to the helicopter, which immediately flew off to an unknown destination. Later it was reported that the body was buried in a shallow hole in the desert west of Omdurman.

Disavowal by party members

Following Taha's execution on Friday morning, which they were made to attend, the four convicted Republicans declared their intention to recant and were accordingly pardoned and allowed to go free on Saturday the 19th. Their recanting was videotaped and shown on national television in an attempt to discourage any sympathy with the Republicans that might lead to a revolt against the regime.

By agreeing to dismantle their organization and refrain from further propagation of Taha's views, all of the nearly four hundred Republican men and women detained in Omdurman on the eve of the execution were released within the week. Republicans who were detained in other towns throughout the country and formally charged with the same combination of offenses as Taha were released upon signing a similar pledge.

Aftermath and nullification

President Nimeiry was overthrown by a popular uprising followed by a coup d'état on April 6 1985, seventy-six days after Taha's execution.

Following Nimeiry's overthrow and the enactment of a new transitional constitution in October 1985, a constitutional suit was initiated by Taha's elder daughter, Asma, and one of the Republicans convicted with him in the January 1985 trial. In this suit the applicants petition the Supreme Court of the Sudan to set aside the convictions and nullify their consequences based on numerous constitutional and procedural objections to that trial. The attorney general of the transitional government made an oral declaration before the Supreme Court to the effect that the January 1985 trial was completely illegal and that, as the current government's attorney, he had nothing to say in defense of that trial.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court asked for a detailed written response to the petition. After considering all the available evidence and the submissions of both sides, the Supreme Court ruled that the trial, confirmation proceedings, and Taha's execution were all null and void. In a long judgment handed down on November 18 1986, the Supreme Court discussed in detail the numerous faults of the whole episode, including clear violations of fundamental, constitutionally guaranteed safeguards and violations of the 1983 Islamic laws themselves.

Taha's views – including those regarding the extension of divine knowledge to humanity after and beyond the death of Muhammad – are considered to be seditious in Sunni theology as manifested in the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali theological schools. Although large parts of North Sudan have recently witnessed an Islamic renaissance amongst the youth, the theological inspiration of this renaissance stems from traditional Islam as opposed to the views of Taha.

References

* "Maalim Ala Tarieq Tatawwur Alfikra Algumhuriyya Khilal Thalathien Aaman", or "Landmarks on the way of development of the Republican Ideology through 30 Years" (1976), a book published by the Republican Movement
* The writings and documentation of Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im
* A thesis written by Eddie Thomas

External links

* [http://alfikra.org/index_e.php Website devoted to Taha's life and ideas]
* [http://www.usip.org/events/2006/0120_reform.html Islamic Reform in Practice: The Ideas of Mahmoud Taha] U.S. Institute of Peace, January 2006 (Audio)
* [http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/3856/42 The Islamic Gandhi] by Gisle Tangenes, Bitsofnews.com, September 2005
* [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060911fa_fact1 The Moderate Martyr] by George Packer, New Yorker September 11, 2006