Were it not for the non -adult rivalry and malicious external interventions, which controls Sudanese politics, the 2005 constitution, which was agreed upon between the national forces, would be suitable to be a valid basis for the establishment of a model unit between the north of the Muslim majority and the Arab culture, and between the south with dominant African culture and multiple religions.
And it would be a logical answer to all the controversy that has reached the relationship of religion with the state, because of that wars and battles, the divisions deepened, and the paths were dispersed.
That constitution contained the intercourse of national historical wisdom, by absorbing the sensitivity of coexistence in a modern, multi -religious and ethnic state, surrounded by challenges from each side, and the intellectual maturity of political currents in the content of that high -end document reached the amount of adulthood that is looking for subscribers, and the reasons for disagreement and difference.
The first article of the constitution came to confirm that Sudan is a democratic state in which there are multiple cultures and languages, and elements, ethnicities and religions coexist. The constitution avoided mentioning the official state debt, and at the same time it equated the sources of legislation: (Sharia, consensus and values for northern Sudan, customs, traditions and religious beliefs of the south).
Regarding the rights and duties, the text has proven that equal citizenship is the standard for them, and that all the languages of Sudan are national languages that must be respected and developed.
That was what was the matter of the texts, but the practice did not go out of what the Sudanese elite had to fight the losing battles, the confusion between what is tactical and what is strategic, in order to record points in the window of opponents, and possessing small victories.
The issue of Islamic law remained at the forefront of national issues that witnessed attraction and disagreement, and with the importance of the thesis of religion’s relationship with the state, the approach adopted by the divided elite deepened the intensity of the conflict over the subject, and affected the national liabilities to build a state of welfare and stability after independence.
Multiple factors that led to these results have overlapped, including the insufficiency of the vision that was presented to implement Islamic law, especially with the challenge of the modern state that colonialism has seen, and the pivotal role that the colonial himself played by graduating generations who reassured that they would carry his flag and defend it after his departure.
In addition to the influence of the sharp political conflict, which turned it from a project that should have been fixed from the constants of the national construction, to a mere project for political competition, the political forces differ clearly.
The Kingdom of Sinariah works in giving us a practical model for the application of Sharia according to its historical concept in the experiences of Muslims, as a life model stemming from the culture of society and expressing its spontaneous formation.
Since the Kingdom was mainly based on the reference of Islam, and later developed its scientific and customary knowledge in its framework, it was applying the Sharia to define the mercy of the mercy, which includes morals, customs, transactions, beliefs and worship, or as Ibn Taymiyyah defined it:
“The correct view is that the law is comprehensive for every work in which Salah al -Din and the world, which is the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, and what the predecessor of the nation was in beliefs, acts of worship, principles, actions, policies, rulings and gifts.”
Besides all this open range of permissibility, the Kingdom added a customary dimension in the culture of society, its pillars were established on the Sufi orders.
The murdered law was the natural expression of societies in the intermediate kingdoms of Sudan: Sennar, frying, and the forms, and Darfur.
Despite the geographical isolation of Sudan from the centers of the Islamic world and the modernity of Islam in it, the scientific movement quickly organized these societies.
In the Kingdom of Sennar (the major of these kingdoms), its kings opened to deepen the legal science, and the call of scholars and jurists to the nascent state, and the emergence of personalities such as the servants of God bin Ubayh, the children of Jaber, and Mahmoud Al -Arki were an important sign of Islamic culture.
Then the Sufi orders came, starting with the visit of Taj al -Din al -Bahari, Sheikh Hamad Abu Danana, and others, at the end of the sixteenth century AD, which made the pillars of Islam be based on the legs of Sharia and truth.
In the field of the judiciary, the Great Court was established in Sennar, and the small courts were in its various parties.
In addition to these courts, there were (white Sharia judges), and they are scholars who specialize in Sharia, who are dismissed in the discounts in the valleys and villages with Sharia only.
Also, (Al -Ajaweed) was widespread at the time, and it is more like an arbitration in our time.
“The development of the judiciary in Sudan”, Mohamed Hassan Al -Mufti says: “The development of the judiciary in Sudan”:
“All judges are righteous men, and each of them was a working scientist, fair, pious, pious, and Islamic sheikh, who is enjoined and forbidden to evil, and each of them was famous among his people for women and fulfilling the covenant.”
What made Sharia a system for society and the judiciary, is that it grew up independent of the authority of the state, and it was a natural expression of those societies that converted to Islam, so the system of its life was established according to its conditions.
They also knew certainty that:
“The Sharia did not come to redesign the social system – which was done by the modern state – but rather came to direct it according to what could be called custom and well -known, and its goal was to establish justice and find social harmony that lead to enabling social structures to perform its tasks smoothly.”
This meaning, which is confirmed by Wael Hallaq, was present in the social and authoritarian awareness in the ancient kingdoms of Sudan, which derived the spirit of its legislation from the concepts of stable Sharia in Islamic knowledge and its experiences in Muslim societies.
Therefore, Sharia was not limited to the fields of laws only, but also dealt with them automatically in the fields of transactions, beliefs and laws.
Perhaps the influence of those kingdoms of the doctrine of Imam Malik, who glorifies the purposes and approval, bringing interests and blocking excuses – especially in penalties and sales – may facilitate the rulers and judges represent the law in public life and in the judiciary.
The acceptance of Sharia from the public and its success at that time is attributed to the fact that it – that is, the law – was not merely a judicial system or a juristic doctrine whose function is limited to organizing social relations and settling conflicts between people, but rather was a rhetorical practice, which linked itself structurally and membership to the world around it, and that it grew and grew up in the heart of the social system that came to serve.
(Wael Hallaq – What is Sharia?)
Sharia as an ideology
The first signs of disagreement and division on the law began in the era of the Mahdist state. The Mahdi began his call to abolish the Islamic schools of thought, and added a new origin to the origins of legislation stable among Muslims, which is legislation through: (inspiration, detection, phones, and urban).
The sources of the legislation became: the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the publications of the Mahdi. Thus, the Presidency of the Supreme Judicial has become to Imam al -Mahdi, in contrast to the independence of the Sharia as a societal system, and the independence of judges and courts in the Sinari Kingdom.
The publication of the rules of judgments issued by Imam al -Mahdi is a good model for the mentality of the legislation that prevailed during that period and with the use of the Mahdi and his successor after him, their diligence based on publications as a third source of legislation, the Mahdia doctrine began to appear in its most prominent face, the component of a new culture in the process of implementing the law in Sudan, which is the culture based on the birth of a specific ideology, or let us say: a special intellectual pattern On a special understanding of the law, his argument derives from the interpretation of the Mahdi and after him his successor to the Qur’anic and modern texts.
By dropping them the legacy of the jurisprudence Muslims, whose rules were built through a long journey of ijtihad, and which generated a loose framework that gave the Sharia its independence and vitality in Muslim societies, they established a profound dispute in the Islamic structure, the result of which was the separation of the class of scholars, which has grown throughout the era of Turkish -Egyptian rule in Sudan, from Mahdia.
Indeed, this class led a counter -interpretation revolution, based on traditional jurisprudence among the masses of Muslims, to fight Mahdia with a counter -vision from within the Islamic religion.
Despite this sharp battle, the dispute between the two teams remained limited to the best way to implement Islamic law.
How the conflict arose on the law
The English colonizer caused a real coup in Sudanese society, by destroying the structure of Sharia, which has governed Sudan for centuries.
As usual, the British believed that the Sharia was not suitable for managing the modern state, but rather that the societies that they came to societies that were mired in the dark, according to Reverend Spencer Trimingham in his book “Islam in Sudan”:
“The position of the British from the beginning was to consider Sudan as a backward people.”
Therefore, the British began with the legislation of recent laws that they brought from India and Britain, built a newly judicial system.
But they were cunning and cunning so that they did not want to provoke Muslims, so they established another parallel system, but it is less important and interesting, and they entrusted him with the task of the legal judiciary to consider the issues of the personal status of Muslims.
Thus, the colonizer succeeded in consolidating the idea of the bilateral in the judiciary, and in the sowing of the contemptible view of all the system and sources represented by the Sharia.
The battle of the application of Sharia began immediately after the colonial exit, between an elite that drank the principles of Western law and its moral systems, and between an Islamic sect that was emerging, sensing in itself the weakness of the beginnings, so she resorted to an alliance that is supported by it in the face of the alienated environment, which is based on the state’s apparatus and its authority.
The most important characteristic of the Islamic ranks was two features that would later be the field of conflict over Sharia with secular powers:
The first advantage: the adoption of the central trend in the Islamists entirely on the state to bring about social change, and that its theory of reform is based on the ability of the political authority, and then the imposition of reform from above, which is better or even with the “most fearful” if the opportunity is available for that.
Some of them were based on justifying this vision on an impact that was mentioned on the authority of our master Othman bin Affan, and they were popular with a prophetic hadith, which is:
“God will be bought by the Sultan that does not give in the Qur’an.”
In all, the secular elite has sensed the danger of this group, which she wants its homes in what it considers to be its home, which is:
“The statue of the modern state inherited from the British.”
The second advantage is to limit the position with the secular powers on the thesis of the Islamic constitution and the laws, or let us say: restricting Sharia to its legislative aspect; Where it was employed as a slogan for embarrassing the political forces, especially those based on the sects of the sealing and supporters with their Islamic references, and the accomplishment of the Communist Party, which was at the height of its violence at that time.
Throughout the period that followed independence until the May revolution in 1969, the thesis was not clear to the Islamists. They assert their use of the secretary of Abi Al -Ala Al -Mawdudi, Zafar Allah Al -Ansari, to place the draft constitution, that the vision about the Sharia has not yet been crystallized.
However, this was not a reason for al -Turabi to postpone the demand for the application of Sharia, as he says:
“It is not valid to delay the descent of the truth until all the scientific investigations that are manifested, and prepare from itself the circumstances of the circumstances, but rather the guidance of religion to rush to the right what has become its public destination, and to the good what its basic features have been drawn.”
In the next episode, we continue to discuss the developments of the conflict on the Sharia, and how the conflict turned into a sharp political conflict, in which the law has been fuel, while political development has decided the country’s destination since the 1973 constitution stipulated that Islamic law is a source of legislation in Sudan, and after the signing of Dr. Al -Turabi – the Minister of Justice at the time – the report of the law reviewing the law in the year 1978, which found that only 10% of the total of 286 law To amend some of its materials to consider Islamic law.
The opinions in the article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al -Jazeera.