Hasan al-Turabi, the Last of the Islamists
The Man and His Times 19322016
By (author) Abdullahi A. Gallab
Publication date:
15 July 2018Length of book:
324 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498548366
This book is not a typical biography of Hasan al-Turabi. It is a project in the study of a Sudanese human experience at the heart of which Hasan al-Turabi was an actor, a victim and a victimizer. Hasan al-Turabi, the rise and fall of his Islamism, and the dramatic life of generations of the Sudanese community of state that link the underlying causes to the capacity of the state not only as a throwback to oppression and exploitation of the colonial state but also accompanied by an alarming persistence of violence and corruption that exists within the wilding and greed of al-Turabi’s Islamists. Here, the Sudanese experience of al-Turabi Islamism stands as a very important one in the history of the Sudan, the region, and in general. This not because of its success but because of its total failure. It proved that what has been advocated as al-Islam howa al-Hal (Islam is the solution) turned into violence is the solution. Hence, what the Sudanese Islamism (al-Turabi Islamism) presented to the world that such a state, is itself an unachievable idea neither by default nor by design. It is as Hasan al-Turabi himself has stated that his Islamists “tarnished the Image of Islam.” Hasan al-Turabi endured more suffering under the hands of his merciless disciples more than he suffered from his enemies. Gallab argues that Islamism like other isms is crucible for violence and evil. Nevertheless, al-Turabi remains an albatross around the neck of the Islamist movement; the Islamist movement remains as an albatross around his neck too. This book illuminates al-Turabi’s life, the human experience of his generation and his Islamists by brining into sharp focus a-Turabi the man and his time, without reproducing a giant of either one of them.
Abdullahi Gallab, who participated in many of the events he describes, is a superb storyteller. His account of Turabi’s rise in the context of colonial Sudan, where the ghost of Mahdism still lingered, his leadership in volatile—and violent—post-independence student and national politics, and his eventual fall from grace, offers an essential key to understanding Sudan’s past and uncertain present.