Modern Muslims

by Steve Howard

  Mahmoud Mohamed Taha’s vision for humankind was soaring. His sources included an amalgam of mystical reflection, deep knowledge and understanding of the Qur’an, and immersion in study of the life of the Prophet Mohamed, not unlike what many of the Muslim thinkers associated with Sufism had done in the past. But Ustadh Mahmoud’s vision also came out of his own life experience, exposure to modern education and the difficult challenges of Sudan’s independence struggle. Although Ustadh Mahmoud and the Republicans were careful to distinguish between themselves and the “conventional Sufis,” there was certainly something mystical to his methods of concentration on prayer and on the Qur’an that led to the unity of his thinking and action. Progressive improvement in the practice of prayer and in being a Republican was always the intention.

  “Unity,” al-towhid, or “monotheism,” was the concept and the goal very much at the center of the Republican ideology as communicated by Mahmoud Mohamed Taha. It was at once beautifully simple and utterly complex. As I tried to wrestle with it, I grew to understand that the complexity of the Republican message was what kept many Sudanese from joining the Republican Brotherhood. I was raised a Boston Catholic and the external simplicity of Islam is what initially attracted me to the faith. To profess Islam one simply recites as a believer the core shahada, or “witness,” that there is No God But God and Mohamed Is His Prophet (la ilaha l’allah wa Mohamdun rasulullah). And then I was moved by visits to small villages along the Blue Nile where I had watched very old men take it upon themselves to demonstrate prayer to me, performing their ablutions while balancing on one crouched foot, and then falling from a standing position to their knees in a graceful motion, touching their foreheads to the ground in prayer. Shahada and prayer were the essences of Muslim life, and many deeply believing people in Sudan felt that it should not be more complicated than that, that no one should be in possession of “secret knowledge” of God’s ways; no one should have to explain Islam to the true believer.

  But the critical point of the Republican movement was that in order to promote and practice the Islam left to us by the Prophet Mohamed in these modern times, we must delve deeply into the meaning of the Qur’an and instruct ourselves, or reinstruct ourselves, in the path of Islam followed by the Prophet himself. Humankind had become distracted, and it was time to restore the Path of the Prophet as the way a Muslim worships God, while never losing sight of the goal of self-actualization.

  Because of the careful instruction and warm socialization of the brotherhood I had found in Omdurman, I decided that I would follow this particular path to Islam. I chose this group more on the basis of my rapid inclusion initially than, I would have to admit, on being convinced of the power or veracity of its message. I often thought about how my knowledge of Arabic and Islam were developing as they would in a Sudanese childhood—through social learning—and I spent time trying to understand this process. But I also quickly became aware that my choice of the Republicans was a controversial one in Sudan, that there were competing platforms for the Muslim soul. I needed to learn more about why I was satisfied with my choice to join these educated, progressive, welcoming people, and why that choice would make many Muslim activists in Sudan angry.

  I also frequently reflected on my decision to embrace Islam, which, considering who I was and where I had come from, was probably more significant than my choice of following Ustadh Mahmoud. There is an expectation from childhood in Muslim culture that families will teach their children verses of the Qur’an, which they will commit to memory. Many children compete in festive tournaments where they exhibit how much they have memorized and/or the quality of their tajweed, or recitation, skills. The first chapter that I memorized was al-Ikhlas, “Sincerity,” which is the chapter that virtually all Muslims have memorized because of its brevity. It reads in translation,

  Say: He is Allah, The One and Only;

  Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;

  He begetteth not, Nor is He begotten;

  And there is none like unto Him.

  I learned this verse while also learning its meaning. The irony struck me immediately and seemed to me a dramatic signal of my new religious orientation. I had been a Christian, and this verse spelled out clearly the Islamic take on Christianity’s vision of the Son of God. Monotheism, tawhid in Arabic, was very much the central idea of Islam and the driving force behind all of Ustadh Mahmoud’s thinking.

  When I visited Rufa’a, Mahmoud Mohamed Taha’s hometown about a hundred miles south of Khartoum on the east bank of the Blue Nile, I often walked past the khalwa, the small retreat house where Ustadh Mahmoud spent two years in spiritual isolation after his imprisonment in the late 1940s. It was essentially a one-room building with a rukuba lean-to porch where one could enjoy a breeze from the giant river. The house was in the compound of his in-laws, and it was that family that cared for him during his period of reflection and isolation, a process known in Arabic as khalwa, which refers both to the act and place of retreat.

  Rufa’a became my own retreat from the intense center of the Republican Brotherhood movement in Omdurman. In Rufa’a I could relax, enjoy family life, and ask my questions about the Republican ideology of people who had been living it for decades, in some cases, since the independence movement. And there were few dawn meetings, like there were at my house with the brothers in Omdurman. The members of the Rufa’a community of brothers and sisters were farmers, small shopkeepers, and primarily teachers in the many schools in the area, a region that had pioneered modern schooling during the colonial era. This community essentially adopted me, or claimed me, really, and helped me grasp the details of Ustadh Mahmoud’s thinking over wonderful meals and talk and tea and river walks. In other words, I could see the Republican theory, the method I heard so much about in Omdurman, put into action in the daily lives of the brothers and sisters, my family, in Rufa’a. Ustadh Khalid El Haj, a long-time high school teacher and principal, and one of Ustadh Mahmoud’s closest followers since the 1960s, became an important interpreter for me of the philosophy and its theology. He had authored a number of the Republican tracts and spoke authoritatively about Republican theology both patiently to me and as a public speaker to crowds, particularly at university sites in the capital. My “Rufa’a seminar” that deepened my understanding of Republican thinking came as a unified package in that it was delivered in the context of its practical application and in the town where that thinking was born. As everyone around me had a “village” of an ancestral nature to call home, I adopted Rufa’a as mine. In those early days, getting to Rufa’a was an adventure in itself, down the Medani road to Hassaheisa, and then a wait for the pontoon ferry across the Blue Nile.

  Mahmoud Mohamed Taha’s important book, The Second Message of Islam (1967; in Arabic, a-risala a-thania min al-Islam), was the product of the reflection he made during his khalwa retreat in Rufa’a in the late 1940s to early 1950s. The book is the centerpiece of Taha’s unwavering constancy in thought and action; it was published in the midst of his own speaking tour across the country in the 1960s. Taha’s point of view was that the debate on the future of Islam needed to be engaged; otherwise, the forces of extremism would be ceded all ground in the face of the Muslim world’s general complacency. Ustadh Mahmoud’s writings were the source both of his followers’ understanding of Islam and their inspiration in the conduct of their lives. His writings led them to their fundamental insight that there was very little to value in Islam today if not for the modern approach proposed by their teacher. But Ustadh Mahmoud’s writings were also an important source of the wider society’s views of Mahmoud Mohamed Taha as everything from unbalanced Sufi sheikh to heretic to apostate, even kaffir, “unbeliever.” Apparently Taha recognized this problem. He told an interviewer from an Arabic-language magazine, Al-Awdaa a-Sudaniya, “My approach is so new that I have become a stranger among my own people.” Ustadh Mahmoud and his followers attempted to present their position within mainstream Islamic discourse and learned through verbal and physic
al abuse that ideological diversity was unwelcome in this arena in Sudan.

  Violence never deterred the members of the Republican Brotherhood from their determination to demonstrate that Islam was the path to human freedom. They were shouted down in public and denounced from the pulpits of mosques by extremist ideologues and their representatives. They were beaten up while trying to give public lectures. At the same time they did have a strong consciousness of how the wider society was reacting to their message, and they spent time listening to those opposed to them. I remember during the days leading up to President Nimeiry’s 1983 crackdown on the group, how the Republican leadership sent delegations of brothers out to mosques in the Khartoum area to listen to the Friday sermons, which had been containing more and more government-sanctioned invective against the Republicans. I participated in this investigation, but only in the protective way that the brothers organized my activities. My assignment was to go to Tuti Island’s mosque to listen to the Friday sermon with one of the brothers who had family there. Tuti was a lovely garden spot in the middle of the Blue Nile, a cooling ten-minute ferryboat ride in those days from Khartoum (there is now a fancy bridge). We took a pleasant boat ride, attended Friday prayers at the relatively calm mosque in Tuti, enjoyed lunch and returned to Omdurman with the intelligence we had gathered. I think the brothers thought I deserved a little “island vacation” from the tension that was developing quickly as Nimeiry tried to crush any opposition to his planned implementation of sharia law in the country.

  Many Islamic reformists of the moderate-liberal-progressive spectrum have captured the imagination—and hope—of the West by describing a “peaceful Islam” or emphasizing the etymological connections between the words for Islam and peace (salaam). The Islamic elephant in the room, so to speak, appears to be sharia law and how it fits into Islam’s current and future practice. Mahmoud Mohamed Taha and his colleagues tackled this issue head on and it has always been the centerpiece of controversy about the Republican Brotherhood.

  The debate over sharia is essentially one of how the Qur’an is to be operationalized. Islamic polemicists such as Sayid Qutb (1906–1966), the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood stalwart who was a contemporary of Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, promoted what could be called a static approach to sharia, stressing that sharia must be observed as they believed it was described in the Qur’an. Taha called his own approach “evolutionary,” one that would move humankind to the level of Islam practiced by the Prophet Mohamed. Taha wrote in the introduction to the fourth edition of The Second Message of Islam,

  Muslims seem unaware of the need to evolve Shari’a. They continue to think that the problems of the twentieth century may be resolved by the same legislation that resolved the problems of the seventh century. This is obviously irrational. Muslims maintain that the Islamic Shari’a is perfect. This is true, but its perfection consists precisely in its ability to evolve, assimilate the capabilities of individuals and society, and guide such life up the ladder of continuous development.1

  The texts of the Republican Brotherhood, the books written by Mahmoud Mohamed Taha and the books, tracts, and odes written by other members of the organization were critically important to my understanding of the social life of the Brotherhood. These works provided the philosophical backdrop for all Republican activities, from their meetings with Ustadh Mahmoud and each other, to public presentations of the movement’s ideology, to the pleasure the brothers and sisters derived from singing the contemporary hymns created out of odes on Republican themes.

  The Republican ideology stood opposed to the political Islam of Osama bin Laden or Sayid Qutb. The Republicans viewed the Islamist perspective as an opportunistic use of the Qur’an’s message to seventh-century members of the Prophet’s community in Medina, to further contemporary political aims. The “reforms” promoted by Islamists are to accept the parts of that seventh-century revelation deemed useful to political objectives today, such as the infliction of cruel punishments instead of addressing poverty or the subordination of women. Iran, Sudan, and some of the states of northern Nigeria have been selective in the aspects of sharia that these “Islamic states,” have applied in their criminal codes, in effect, “revising Shari’a,” or “cherry-picking” Islamic law, in the American idiom.

  Mahmoud Mohamed Taha provided contrast to the Islamist perspective above in his own Qur’anic commentary, The Second Message of Islam. In it may be found an Islamic reform “how-to”: an activist (many said “too activist”) approach or methodology that acknowledges the historical process of Qur’anic revelation and provides direction to the message of God that Taha believed was meant for the modern world. Mahmoud Mohamed Taha did not seek accommodation between Islam and the latest in Western mores; he wrote that his reading of the Qur’an found democratic values and social equality in places of honor. “We are not concerned here with deprecating Western civilization or belittling it, but rather wish to study it scientifically and put it in its proper place. We wish to acknowledge its advantages and advocate its reform so that it evolves into a true civilization rather than remaining satisfied with its material progress.”2

  My education in the Republican Brotherhood ideology was largely oral and experiential. But my understanding was expanded by the books, pamphlets, and odes written by Ustadh Mahmoud and other senior leaders of the movement. Communicating the message of the Republican Brotherhood was a crucial element of the organization’s planning. Proselytizing the message was not as important a goal as becoming more articulate about the message for one’s own understanding of it. And this could be accomplished through the act of trying to recruit people to the Republican idea.

  Ustadh Mahmoud’s written words guided his followers’ daily lives. Passages from his works were committed to memory and inscribed on large posters, which decorated homes and offices of the members, often next to the beautifully drawn Qur’anic verses often found in Muslim living spaces. Islam is, as Daniel Martin Varisco wrote, an “eminently textualized faith,”3 and the Republicans’ interactions with texts prepared them for the struggles they faced in representing their movement in the wider society. The Republican Brotherhood grew out of Sudan’s modern educational history, of which literacy was a hallmark. I attended an early morning meeting in Rufa’a, which has developed a custom of communal reading and discussion of Republican texts under the leadership of Rufa’a Republican leaders such as Ustadh Khalid El Haj. This particular session was a gathering immediately after the predawn subuh prayer, a time when many Muslims return to bed after praying, for a little sleep before work. The industrious Republican community developed the habit of using this early waking hour for discussion of the latest Republican book. In this case, the scene was a group of older Republican sisters, some of whom were not literate, reading or being read to from the recently published Republican tract, Hatha Hou a-Sadiq al-Mahdi (This is Sadiq al-Mahdi), a critique of the Umma Party leader’s religiously cloaked political aspirations, as he sought the position of prime minister once again in the 1980s. The reading group would share their first tea of the day while one sister would read a few pages each day and lead the group in questions and discussion of the text. Older housewives who otherwise would not participate in the debates taking place at Ustadh Mahmoud’s meetings in Omdurman had a chance to do so in this manner, extending spirituality to the notion of family literacy.

  The Second Message of Islam was essentially required reading for Republicans; as its author stated in the introduction, it is “the basic text for the Republican cause.” The book is Mahmoud Mohamed Taha’s “extremely concise” (his words) treatise on how the Qur’an applies to human life at this modern stage of its history and how, as a divine document, al-mudhaf, it evolves to guide every stage of existence. The Islamic belief is that the Qur’an exists at a spiritual level; that it was not created. An additional enigmatic note from Taha in the fourth edition of his book was that, because of the book’s brevity, “further explanation and elaboration will follow in good time, God
willing.”

  In that The Second Message of Islam provoked controversy with both its title and its content, I should attempt to summarize the book here. “Message” is a terribly loaded term for Muslims because of the Prophet Mohamed’s unique role as “Messenger,” or really as “seal” or final prophet of Islam. Casual or quick inspection of Taha’s use of the term “second message” could raise issues of heresy and often did for Taha and his followers. In lands like Sudan, where Sufism is the dominant expression of Islam the Prophet Mohamed is seen as the first Sufi. I often compared Sudanese reverence for the Prophet to devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary among my Italian and Irish forebears. I remember an emotional meeting where one of the brothers described his visit to the tomb of the Prophet Mohamed in Medina, Saudi Arabia, which left most of his listeners in tears.