Modern Muslims
MODERN MUSLIMS
a sudan memoir
Steve Howard
ohio university press
athens
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
© 2016 by Ohio University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Howard, W. Stephen, author.
Title: Modern Muslims : a Sudan memoir / Steve Howard.
Description: Athens : Ohio University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016024897| ISBN 9780821422304 (hc : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780821422311 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780821445778 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Howard, W. Stephen—Religion. | Howard, W. Stephen—Travel—Sudan. | Ikhwān al-Jumhūrīyūn. | Sufism—Sudan—History—20th century. | Islam—Sudan—History—20th century. | Sudan—Politics and government—1956–1985. | Sudan—Social life and customs—20th century.
Classification: LCC BP188.8.S8 H69 2016 | DDC 297.409624—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024897
Contents
5. Communicating Islamic Reform: Small Media, Big Ideas
Appendix: “Either This or the Flood”
Glossary of Sudanese Arabic Terms
Illustrations
Photographs
Lunch at the “brothers’ house” in Atbara, 1982
“Hajja Rhoda.” Rhoda Abdullahi and her husband, Mohamed El Hassan Mohamed Khair, Rufa’a, 1982
Ustadh Khalid El Haj, in Wad el Fadl, eastern Gezira, 1989
Winter farming of ajur, cucumber, Blue Nile near Rufa’a
Tombs of saints in the old cemetery at Abu Haraz, Blue Nile
Mohamed el Fekki Abdel Rahman, Republican Brother, tailor
Amna Lotfi, wife of Mahmoud Mohamed Taha
Somaya Mahmoud, Taha’s daughter, working in Showak, eastern Sudan
Republican families strolling with author on the banks of the Atbara River, eastern Sudan
Somaya Mahmoud with her mother, Amna Lotfi
Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, ca. 1975
Ustadh Mahmoud officiating at a Republican wedding, ca. 1975
Brothers and sisters gathered with Ustadh Mahmoud in front of his house, ca. 1980
Bus ride in Cairo, Talab Zahran with Melaz Mohammed-al-Fatih
Map
South Sudan Independent from 2011
Acknowledgments
A book that has emerged slowly over twenty years has accumulated many, many people worthy of my deepest thanks. The enduring hospitality and patience of the brothers and sisters of the Republican Brotherhood movement was of course paramount in making possible the completion of this memoir. I’ll single out Abdullahi An-Na’im, Khalid Mohamed El Hassan, and Mustafa El Jaili for their particular assistance in my getting the facts straight—although any misperception is my own. Many other brothers and sisters were eager to help me understand by sharing their understanding, and they are mentioned in the book as well. The Republican brothers and sisters have been the most important teachers in my life.
I also have relied (heavily!) on patient friends in the United States who have listened to me (and listened to me and listened to me) talk about what I was trying to represent with this book. The advice over the many years from Lidwien Kapteijns, Ghirmai Negash, Elizabeth Collins, and Jay Spaulding has been critical in the production of this memoir. My many students who have listened to me talk about this movement and have added their impressions of it—often providing other African examples—have provided a great learning experience for me as well. I am deeply in debt to the marvelous Gill Berchowitz for her tireless championing of Africanist scholarship and my work on this book, as she patiently steered it toward publication. I am also very grateful to Professor Francis Nyamnjoh at the University of Cape Town for providing me time and an office, with a view of Table Mountain, so that I could finally pull this book together.
I dedicate this book to my own siblings, Kathy, Rosemary, and Peter, in hopes that they gain a greater understanding of what their older brother has been up to for a long time.
South Sudan Independent from 2011. Map by Nick Kroncke.
Prologue
Noon
Of the 114 chapters of the Qur’an, 29 of them begin with stand-alone letters of the alphabet, signifying what