Modern Muslims

by Steve Howard

  The finished books were then ready for sale on the streets. The Republicans became their own distributors in this process and saw the “selling campaign” as a vital extension of their discussions in meetings among themselves. In fact, the campaign process was praxis or an application of the Republican’s religious ideology in that it strengthened the individual’s understanding of and commitment to that message. Over the years of their publishing program more than 200 titles were produced by the Republican Brothers. When a new book was ready for distribution, brothers and sisters would gather at the home of Ustadh Mahmoud and prepare for the launch. I participated in a launch once, entrusted with carrying a package of a new book to the brothers in Rufa’a, Hatha Hou a Sadiq el Mahdi (This is Sadiq el Mahdi, a tract on the sectarian political career of the once and future prime minister of Sudan). As I left the house of Ustadh Mahmoud, he shook my hand firmly and whispered in my ear, “Selem ala Sheikh Taha,” (“Greet Sheikh Taha for me!”). Sheikh Taha, no close relation to Ustadh Mahmoud, was the holy man buried in the tomb in Rufa’a’s old cemetery; Ustadh knew that I enjoyed visits to the awlia.

  Often a session of prayer and reflection would precede the deployment of bookselling teams to the streets. It was important that members of the organization participating in the sale of Republican books be spiritually and intellectually informed of their contents. The bookselling campaign was seen as a test of one’s mettle and of one’s commitment to and knowledge of the Republican vision of Islam.

  Fortified by prayer and hymn singing, the brothers and sisters set out for sales, usually in separate teams, except for husbands and wives. There were specific rules conveyed to me that were applied to those wishing to participate in the book distribution campaigns. The guidelines, which were largely common sense, included:

  You must be tolerant of others’ viewpoints while selling the books.

  Do not talk with the public about issues you are not sure about.

  Make your first hamla (campaign) with someone more experienced than you are.

  Read the material before you attempt to sell it.

  Know the Qur’an because it is the foundation of all of our books.

  Developing a high state of consciousness about what one was doing in the act of hamla (or any other act for that matter) was the purpose of discussing these rules with newcomers to the group.

  The teams of brothers or sisters would generally head for the busy market areas across the Khartoum metropolitan area. It was not necessarily a hard sell, and sales were generally brisk. People were thirsty for information about their religion, particularly after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. Sisters would stand on the street corner, offering the books by holding them fanned in their hands. Their white taubs stood out as advertising that the Republicans were around. The brothers might pursue sales a bit more assertively, asking passersby if they would be interested in learning more about the movement and its writings. It was common to see Republican books in the back windows of Khartoum taxis in that the cabdrivers were also looking for something to read while waiting for passengers.

  Altercations did occur with opposing forces in the urban setting. I remember once going out on book sales with a group of four or five brothers. We were stopped by members of the conservative Wahabi group, which styled itself as strict followers of the Prophet Mohamed, right down to dressing as they imagined the Prophet Mohamed would. These guys started screaming at us, “Where are your beards??!!” in reference to their notion that an observant Muslim man should wear a beard as the Prophet did. The next morning I shaved off my mustache. There were also reports of sisters involved with book sales having their hair pulled or their collection of books thrown in the mud, by forces reacting to the “indecent” exposure of women selling books on the street. These incidents followed us to the United States as well. I hosted a lecture by Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im at Ohio University, which featured a table where we were selling his translation of Ustadh Mahmoud’s book, The Second Message of Islam. The table was left unattended during the talk, and we later discovered that a Saudi student had taken all of the books and thrown them in a trash can outside the hall. He later confessed and apologized to us.

  Book sales by brothers in the small towns outside of Khartoum-Omdurman could be far more sedate and low key. A number of times I went with brothers on hamla in Rufa’a where we sold a book or two in the evening market and then stopped for Cokes at a small shop. After an hour or two of sales, wherever they took place, the teams would report back to the leadership in the evening meeting. As an important part of the meeting agenda at the home of Ustadh Mahmoud, book sales would be tallied with comparisons made of which books were the most popular. The price of each book was minimal, from five to ten Sudanese pounds. And the proceeds went into producing more books, with a brother with accounting skills keeping track of sales.

  Another important part of the post-sale evening agenda would be discussing public reaction to the books. What was the public saying about our latest book or about us? “Impressions” fueled the meeting and often contributed to second or third editions of some of the books as their contents were modified based on some public reactions. These revisions usually revolved around clarifying a point of Republican thought that had been obscure in an earlier edition. The impressions segment could also be to discuss public reaction to Republican thought and behavior in general because the organization was always extremely interested in how it was perceived and whether it was accepted. It could also be an opportunity for positive reinforcement as one brother described how another handled a difficult question from someone on the street. Ustadh Mahmoud focused intently on these “impressions” sessions and would often summarize them at the meetings.

  The university campuses were also important venues for both book sales and for communicating the Republican message by other means. Wall newspapers were prepared carefully on rolls of white paper, perhaps 12 feet long by 4 feet high. Teams of brothers would usually transfer the contents of one of the latest Republican books to the paper by hand, with large lettering to highlight important sections or points. These would be taped up on bulletin boards provided by the universities for announcements by student organizations. Sometimes a brother or sister would be posted by the newspaper to answer questions, or sometimes brothers would spend the night guarding the newspaper from defacement by one of the other student religious groups opposed to Republican thought.

  The Republicans would occasionally mount more ambitious exhibits of their books at the universities or elsewhere. A tent would be set up with tables inside covered with various editions of the Republican books. The sides of the tents would be decorated with colorful posters or banners that contained quotes from the books or from one of Ustadh Mahmoud’s lectures. Several brothers and sisters would be available to take questions and supervise sales of the books. When one of the brothers referred to the opening of such an exhibit as an “inauguration,” in English, I got myself in trouble by telling him that I thought that was too grandiose a term for the event. In my early days learning about the Republicans and their perspectives it was clear that I often missed the cues signaling the importance of all of these activities to those who organized and invested in them. The inauguration of the book exhibit actually did feature an opening lecture, singing of Republican hymns, and a good crowd of brothers and sisters, including those who were not university students. Eventually I grew to understand the strong unity that these group activities represented, and the intense pride people had in their successful launching.

  Whether on the streets of Khartoum collecting impressions from the public about the Republican perspective or in a small town or on a delegation to a far corner of the country, I found these campaigns of the Republican Brotherhood to be part of Ustadh Mahmoud’s genius in getting his followers to learn about their country and its peoples on their own terms. There always was a strong sense of national purpose in the movement, certainly since its origins in the independence strugg
le. And the trips around the country that the Brotherhood sponsored, which they called wafd, “delegation,” were low-key representations of their ideas, armed only with their simply produced books and their hymns. I had to adjust to traveling with them in Sufi style. The father of a brother died in the small Gezira village of Hilat Hammad. Ustadh Mahmoud assembled a group to represent the Republicans at the funeral. A couple of members of the delegation found me walking along the street in Omdurman and told me to come along on the journey. “I don’t even have a toothbrush with me!” I complained. But I went with them to the village for a couple of nights where we sang Republican hymns at the wake-like event and learned about life in a very rural community. Someone bought me a toothbrush at a tiny shop in the village, and one of the farmers lent me a jellabiya to sleep in. We traveled bidoon shunta (“without a suitcase”), as my friend Khalid liked to call it.

  This was the way to get to know a community and to demonstrate your level of commitment to understanding their life circumstances. You don’t roll into town in a nice car and shiny shoes. You accept the bed that someone probably carried under his arm from his house to that of the family of the deceased; these sisal and wood beds were not that heavy. They get placed around outside, and the son of the man who carried the bed arrives with a thin mattress and a sheet and a pillow. You think about “effortless hospitality,” but there is effort involved and you acknowledge it by being there. In the morning as you are getting ready to leave with the delegation, you accept the glass of sweet hot tea made with goat’s milk from each of the pretty ceramic tea pots carried to the event by farmers from their wives’ kitchens. Twenty glasses of goat-milky tea. And there is no way to say “no, thanks.”

  The Word in the Streets

  The most important, or dramatic rather, element of the Republican efforts to communicate their perspectives to the general public in the Khartoum area were the arkaan (singular rukun, meaning “corner” literally.) These talks held in public areas of the national capital were also referred to as a “platform” or member (the term also refers to the pulpit used by preachers in mosques and churches). The term “corner” came from one of the brothers who had studied in London and used to observe democracy in action at the Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner. The Republicans were trying to assert their right to express themselves and share their views in a consistent manner, and in the absence of a right to appear on radio or in television broadcasts, they regularly scheduled these talks around town. The most famous and the most controversial speaker among the Republicans was Ahmed Dali, whom I described as a brothers’ house leader in chapter 3. In fact this was Dali’s job, and he was one of the only “employees” of the movement, as he was paid a small stipend to give talks on a daily basis.

  Only brothers and sisters with the deepest understanding of the Qur’an and of the Republican ideology were permitted to represent the group in public in this manner. Ustadh Mahmoud would spend a great deal of time talking with these men and women about his ideas and about their knowledge of them, as well as strategies on how to present them in public. Most days Dali would meet early with Ustadh Mahmoud and then travel to the center of Khartoum to offer his rukun. He was a public intellectual in the tradition that sprang out of the Khartoum coffee houses in the 1920s and ’30s, where men would gather to discuss the events of the day, presaging the independence era.

  The established spot for Dali’s event was under an enormous aradeb (tamarind) tree with large spreading branches that provided a great deal of shade in hot Khartoum. He also frequently spoke on the University of Khartoum campus. Dali’s rukun al-aradeba attracted hundreds of people each morning. Some came out of intense support for the Republican idea; some were there to heckle or question every pronouncement; and many came just for the show. Some came to listen to Dali or other top-notch Republican speakers play with the language, another important part of the Republican rhetoric. Dali would stand in the shade of the tree with a chair that he might sit on or lean on as the morning went on. The crowd would form a large circle around him, enough to draw young girls selling peanuts or other seed snacks. Dali would begin with “Let us agree that . . .” and then his tone would often turn accusatory, pricking people’s consciousness on issues such as women’s equality in Islam. He frequently cited Qur’anic verses in support of what he was saying, and those with opposing views would also shout out contradictory verses. The devil may cite scripture for his purpose, Shakespeare said (in The Merchant of Venice, I believe). But this also pointed to the root of what Ustadh Mahmoud was trying to get at in his book, The Second Message of Islam, which explained the difference in revelations that came to the Prophet Mohamed in Mecca versus those revealed to him during the Medina phase of his Prophecy. The two phases often contradicted each other because, as Ustadh Mahmoud would explain, the Medina texts were revealed at a difficult time in the construction of Islamic society and were not meant for all time, as the Meccan texts were. Dali spent a great deal of time explaining this difference to his audience—with mixed results. He did not soft-pedal religion to his audience, like an American evangelist might do to the millions of Christians who tune into his US television broadcasts. He tried to speak at the level of the crowd, giving people, in his words, the “exact dose” of what he thought they could absorb.

  The members of the Muslim Brotherhood targeted Dali in these talks, often planting members of the audience to challenge him or just heckle him. Part of this was due to Dali’s own take-no-prisoners style of audience confrontation, telling his challengers that they were wrong without subtlety. Fist fights broke out occasionally as a result, and Dali was badly beaten by Muslim Brothers (often called by the Republicans, “MBs”) at a University of Khartoum talk. He lost hearing in one of his ears that was never restored. Dali and the other Republican speakers took to the streets to denounce Muslim Brotherhood tactics and tendencies, the only voices in Sudan to do so.

  Besides general ignorance of Islam’s details and history, the greatest opposition to the Republican Brotherhood in Sudan was Sudan’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. This group is best known today in the West as the party of Mohamed Morsi, the deposed president of Egypt. My own talks about the Republican Brotherhood in the United States have been met with some confusion, because of the association between “brotherhood” and “Muslim” in people’s minds. Hassan al-Banna was an Egyptian schoolteacher who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1920s. His early thinking about Islam was not radically different from Mahmoud Mohamed Taha’s early ideas. They both railed against the colonial imposition of European values on Muslim peoples, and they both encouraged their followers to think more carefully as to how they were practicing Islam—particularly as an alternative to Western influence.

  Where the two differed, or where their organizations diverged, was in the eventual adoption by the Muslim Brotherhood of violent means to make progress toward its political agenda. The Muslim Brotherhood has been an important (now banned) political party in Egypt and has been an extremely influential party in Sudan. The current regime governing Sudan took its essential philosophy from the Muslim Brotherhood and its guide in Sudan, Dr. Hassan al-Turabi (1932–2016). Al-Turabi was thought to have influenced President Nimeiry’s decision to execute Mahmoud Mohamed Taha in 1985.

  All of these talks, arkaan, lectures were thoroughly analyzed by the members of the Republican Brotherhood at their evening meetings with Ustadh Mahmoud. Other brothers and sisters went out on the speaking circuit around town, particularly on the university campuses, as they gained expertise and knowledge, and confidence from Ustadh Mahmoud that they understood the Republican idea thoroughly enough to stand up to the tough audience scrutiny of Khartoum. The brothers and sisters were excited by the reports of challenging debates taking place under the aradeba tree or elsewhere. They felt their cause moving forward even as they sensed their country falling behind in its understanding of Islam and what Muslims should do. As I listened to these talks in the streets and heard reports of people’s i
mpressions of them over and over again, I too felt increasingly transformed by Ustadh Mahmoud’s pedagogy, with some help from the mystics. This was better than graduate school.

  6

  A Modern Muslim

  Although the word “memoir” does contain the word “me,” that etymological coincidence was not why I selected this form of narrative for my account of the Republican Brotherhood. Rather, I felt limited by academic approaches and—because literature on the Republicans was so sparse—I did not want to shoehorn my personal experience of this phenomenon into the meager literature on progressive social movements in the Muslim world. I was drawn to the inconclusiveness of a memoir because my experience is not the only story to be told of the Republican Brotherhood. I wanted to be free to share my observations about people whom I had grown to know well, while subjecting my observations to whatever authority I have mined in forty years of paying attention to Africa. Memoir also seemed appropriate in that so much of what the Republicans shared of Mahmoud Mohamed Taha and each other was recalled in the form of oral narratives, despite the highly literate state of the participants. Such reports were a comfortable way of remembering, common to the culture, and they could be quickly edited as one learned new details. The brothers and sisters were far more focused on their practice of faith than they were on collecting written stories.

  With my decision to produce this memoir I am sure that I was also thinking it was time to get a personal account of this movement out there unencumbered by tentative frames. The memoir asserts the right, responsibility, and the privilege of witnessing that I hope in this case communicates the passion, vigor, and sincerity in which the Republicans approached belief. My intention has certainly been to contribute a book that promotes a nuanced understanding of how a Muslim society uses its faith to organize itself. Islam has become The Big Story in the West since the 1970s, but we’ve seen few changes in that story’s core stereotypes over five decades.