CRITICAL MUSLIM 12, OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2014
MAHMOUD TAHA: HERESY AND MARTYRDOM
Abdelwahab El-Affendi
The lowest point for the regime of former Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiri (1969–1985), if not for the whole of modern Sudanese history, came on the morning of Friday 18 January 1985. At that fateful hour (around 10am), a seventy-seven-year-old man was dragged in chains to the gallows, with tens of thousands of people watching, most of them cheering with glee. The courtyard of the main prison in Khartoum, the Kober prison, was full to capacity, and the masses were queuing for miles around in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of the spectacle. Just before being dispatched, the hood covering the convict’s face was removed so that he could behold the hate and condemnation in the eyes of the crowd.
To the astonishment of all watching, there was a confident and benign smile on that well-known face, with its traditional parallel scars on both cheeks. Just at that moment, the hundreds of political prisoners housed in that jail shouted in unison a slogan calling for the downfall of the regime. His smile broadened slightly as he acknowledged the implied support. His face was covered again, and he was promptly hanged. His body was then winched in a helicopter and taken to an anonymous burial spot on the edge of the desert. His grave remains unknown to his family and friends to this day.
The condemned man was Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, at the time an established religious thinker with a small but dedicated band of followers, mainly among the educated youth. He was relatively unknown outside Sudan, and was shunned by the established religious mainstream. Already a Shari’a court had condemned him in 1968 as an apostate. But since Shari’a courts, a remnant of the days of British rule, had no jurisdiction beyond personal affairs, that was more of a fatwa than a judicial decision.
However, after Nimeiri announced sweeping ‘Islamic’ legislation in
September 1983, things began to change.
In 1984, frustrated with the mounting opposition to his measures and
the reluctance of the judiciary to cooperate, Nimeiri established a tier of
courts dubbed the ‘Prompt Justice Courts’, operating under emergency
regulations. These courts were manned by zealots from both Nimeiri’s
core support among minor Sufi groups, plus an assortment of Islamists.
The courts adopted a cavalier attitude towards procedures, and scores of
summary harsh sentences were meted out every week and were publicised
in the media. Some of the trials were televised.
In January 1985, Taha was hauled with four of his followers in front of
one of these courts. He had been arrested in December 1984, having been
released from nineteen months of detention earlier that month, on
charges of sedition for distributing leaflets condemning Nimeiri’s anti-
Islamic laws. Criminal Court no. 4 in Omdurman happened to be manned
by a young judge adhering to a small Sufi sect headed by Nimeiri’s key
adviser on Islamic law at the time. The charges against the accused were,
ironically, under secular law: they were accused of sedition and ‘inciting
hatred against the state’. After just two days of trial, the five accused were
sentenced to death on 8 January. The Appeals Court, within the same
Prompt Justice Courts system, not only affirmed the sentence but added
the charge of apostasy, citing the 1968 court decision and a statement by
the Muslim World League, also in 1968, declaring Taha’s ideas contrary to
Islam. In its ruling issued on 15 January, the accused were given three days
to repent or face execution. The four other accused decided to recant and
were reprieved. President Nimeiri endorsed Taha’s sentence; and it was
carried out.
The speed with which the trial was conducted sent shock waves through
the Sudanese intellectual and political scenes. There were wide
condemnations from trade unions, lawyers and academic bodies, and the
process which led to Nimeir’s toppling from power in a popular
revolution three months later was set in motion. In February 1986, the
Appeals Court quashed the ruling retrospectively.
A Turbulent Life
Mahmoud Muhammad Taha (1909–1985) first came to national
prominence in September 1946 when he led a demonstration that
stormed the prison in the provincial town of Rufa’a to free three women
imprisoned under a law which banned Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
The British colonial authorities had passed the FGM ban a year earlier and
the women included the mother of a little girl and the midwife who
performed the operation. Taha and his followers forced the release of the
women, and entered into further confrontations with the police when the
mother was re-arrested. Taha argued that he was not in favour of FGM,
but resented colonial interference in local customs. The women were
freed, but Taha himself was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison.
That was his second stint in jail that year. Earlier in the year, and a few
months after setting up the Republican Party in October 1945, he was
detained by the authorities and sentenced to one year in prison for
sedition. But he was released after less than two months due to popular
pressure. However, in the Rufa’a protest case, he was forced to serve his
full term. It proved a turning point in his life.
In prison, Taha, an engineer by profession, found religion. Prior to that
episode, his rhetoric was largely secular, with a focus on opposition to the
traditional ‘sectarian’ parties. However, following his detention, he began
a period of deep reflection on religious issues. Emerging from jail two
years later, he went into voluntary seclusion for three more years. When
he emerged, he was a new man. His ‘republican’ party became a religious
cult centred around his mystical vision. He still maintained a liberal
outlook, prioritising individual freedom and the anti-colonial struggle.
But this time, he used the term ‘jihad’ as a rallying cry. Many of his
colleagues left to join other parties, and he had to make do with a small
ever-growing circle of disciples.
His full vision was not coherently developed until the mid-1960s. But
in the meantime, he began to campaign on a number of issues. In the
run-up to independence in 1956, the main Islamist movement, the
Muslim Brotherhood, emerged on the scene and managed to put the
question of the ‘Islamic Constitution’ on the agenda. Taha vehemently
opposed this call, and later resigned from the Constitutional Commission
in protest at its domination by what he saw as ‘sectarian’ parties. He wrote
one of his first pamphlets, Usus Dustur al-Sudan (the Fundamentals of
Sudan’s Constitution, 1955), in which he outlined his vision for Sudan as
a decentralised presidential republic. Already, however, we can discern
here some of his future core ideas, such as arguing that ‘absolute freedom’
for the individual should be the goal of the political system, but citizens
need to be educated to deserve it; and part of the education is political
empowerment. He also argued that the Qur’an should be the basis of the
constitution, adding a ‘cosmopolitan’ flavour to his prescription by
arguing both that the future of humanity requires a proper understanding
of Islam, but also that Sudan should orient itself to become part of a world
order based on peace and equality. He also advocated some form of
welfare state.
The democracy in Sudan did not survive long, and Taha was quick to
write to the generals who took power in 1958, beseeching them to
implement his vision of a ‘socialist, federalist, democratic system’. The
request was completely ignored. But it set a precedent that would prove
problematic, and ultimately disastrous, in days to come: pinning the hope
on a dictator to realise a vision of ultra-liberal democracy. Taha had a
problem with actual democracy in a context like Sudan, where he
detested the main political actors, blaming them for misguiding the
masses into adhering to reactionary visions.
It was under the military regime, however, that Taha encountered his
first serious setback. In 1960, three of his disciples were expelled from
the Ma’had al-‘Ilmi, the highest institution of religious learning in Sudan.
They were accused of propagating Taha’s ideas, in particular his views that
the obligatory daily prayers need not be performed by one like him, who
had achieved an elevated spiritual rank. Taha tried to negotiate the
students’ reinstitution, and when he failed, he wrote one of his first major
works, Al-Islam, in which he summed up his reform vision.
His problems got much worse once democracy was restored after the
popular uprising which swept the military away in October 1964. He
revived the Republican Party again and plunged headlong into the politics
of the day. His first major clash with the establishment came in 1965,
when parliament decided, by an overwhelming majority, to ban the
Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) and dismiss its eleven MPs. This came
after a young man who claimed to be a member of the party launched a
public attack on the Prophet Muhammad and his family, provoking public
protests. The Communist Party denied the man was a member and
distanced itself from his remarks. But its opponents decided to exploit the
popular backlash and banned it anyway. When the Supreme Court
declared the measures were unconstitutional, the government and
parliament defiantly refused to abide by the ruling, causing the Chief
Justice to resign in protest.
Hassan Turabi, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and at the time
the country’s leading constitutional lawyer, produced a booklet supporting
the ban. His argument was that ultimate sovereignty rested with
parliament, which was the source of law. Therefore, no other authority,
including the courts, had the power or right to challenge the parliament.
Taha produced a scathing counter-attack, questioning Turabi’s Islamic
credentials (he scarcely produced Islamic arguments to support his case)
and his legal competence and understanding of democracy.
In 1967, he launched into another battle, this time targeting Arab
leaders following the catastrophic defeat against Israel in June that year,
challenging them to recognise Israel and accept a peace deal with it on the
basis of the Partition Decision of 1947. He had been engaged for years
prior to that in a crusade against Egypt’s Gamal Abd al-Nasir (Nasser). He
had sent him letters (in September 1955 and again in August 1958) urging
him to espouse Islam as a basis of his rule, and chastising him for his
populist anti-Western policies, which he deemed demagogic and
irresponsible. Taha was deeply hostile to pan-Arab nationalism, which he
branded as ‘racist’; he argued that Arabs have only entered history as
Muslims, and that is the way they will do so again. Like Sudan’s generals,
Nasser did not bother to reply to his messages.
In 1966, Taha gave up his job as an engineer and dedicated himself fully
to his mission. Over the next two years, he published some of his most
important works, including his magnum opus, Al-Risala al-Thaniya fi’il-
Islam (The Second Message of Islam, hereafter RTI, January 1967). This
landed him into big trouble. Shortly after the second edition of RTI was
published in April 1968, some clerics lodged a complaint against him in
one of the Shari’a courts, accusing him of apostasy. These courts had no
real powers, and no jurisdiction. Taha boycotted the proceedings, and
treated the court with disdain. Nevertheless, the court held a trial in his
absence and declared him an apostate on 18 November 1968, after just
three hours of deliberation.
Taha and his followers saw this as the culmination of a long struggle
with the traditional religious establishment, and in their riposte,
condemned the ulama as hypocrites who were not qualified to judge Taha,
being themselves a creation of the colonial order and having a history of
serving colonial rule and all variety of authoritarian regimes. Interestingly,
they also accused Nasser of instigating the court procedures against him
in a ‘conspiracy’ to silence him and avenge his vocal criticisms of Nasser.
It was a poignant irony, therefore, that when Nimeiri took power in a
bloodless military coup in May 1969, Taha offered enthusiastic support to
the new regime, even though it was supported by Nasser and the SCP.
Even when Nimeiri engaged in massacres against the Mahdists and later
against his own Communist allies, Taha maintained his support. Nimeiri
banned all political parties, so Taha’s movement changed its name to the
Republican Brothers and continued to operate with tacit regime approval.
This remains one of the most controversial positions of the Republicans,
given their principled support for freedom and their blanket
condemnations of dictatorships elsewhere. The justifications offered for
this position tend to compound the problem, since it reiterates the
unprincipled claim that the ‘reactionary’ sectarian parties and Islamists
were a worse alternative. Expressing the hope that Nimeiri’s rule would
‘liquidate’ the sectarian parties and suppress the Islamists, as well as
eliminating the Communists, thus permitting a period of ‘enlightenment’
and change, is apparently an overt endorsement of repressive violence.
However, not only did Nimeiri fail to eradicate sectarians and Islamists,
but he later allied himself with them. Further on, he declared himself an
‘imam’ in his own right and became Taha’s worst nightmare: a zealot
religious dictator. That is when he decided to oppose him, and paid with
his life.
The Core Theory
It is not easy to pin down the essence of Taha’s innovative thought, but two
interconnected strands pervade his discourse: a commitment to liberal
individualism and a mystical inclination. It is also not clear which came
first, given his trajectory. It is also problematic that he combines his
almost dogmatic liberalism with socialist notions. In this sense, at times
one discerns that the liberalism frames the mysticism, while at others, it
looks as if it was the mysticism which framed the liberalism. But there is
no doubt that it was his mystical certainties which sustained him through
his turbulent times.
The way he expresses his hopes and analyses also indicates an
evolutionary vision which operates at multiple levels: biological,
historical, social, political and spiritual. He combines the traditional
creation story with conventional Darwinism by arguing that when Adam
was banished from Heaven, he was banished into almost nothingness, and
had to be created anew along the lines suggested by Darwinism: life
emerged like a spark from sheer matter, then evolved until man came
into being. This was the tortuous path through which Adam became
human again and was forgiven. Human society also evolved from a
primitive state of superstition and barbarism to civilisation. Social
evolution was also paralleled with spiritual evolution: from primitive
paganism, to advanced paganism, to monotheism. This was also a kind of
objective process, like the biological evolution: as humanity evolved and
became more mature, it became deserving of a higher level of
spiritualism. Within monotheism itself, there was an evolution that could
be described as the ‘Islamic Trinity’: Judaism was strictly regulatory in its
prescriptions, while Christianity swung like a pendulum in the other
direction, concentrating on spirituality rather than behaviour. Then Islam
came to restore the balance to the middle, between the arbitrary
strictness suitable for primitive societies, and the idealist spiritualism
which borders on permissiveness.
On the basis of this analysis, Taha builds his core theory of individual
spiritual evolution. And here, his mystical inclinations come into their
element. He begins by arguing that man is not only a divine creation, but
essentially divine. The verse which states that ‘O Mankind, be conscious
of your Sustainer who created you out of one living entity (nafs)’ (4: 1),
is interpreted to mean that you have been created out of God himself.
Having been banished into oblivion, this nafs (soul, self) then evolves back
into humanity, and through Shari’a could be restored back to its divine
status and absolute freedom.
Thus in political society as in religious law, the absolute freedom of the
individual is the most fundamental principle. In Islam, the individual is the
basic unit of accountability, and each individual confronts God on his/her
own. But to be exercised, freedom needs to be earned and deserved.
Those incapable of respecting the freedom of others must be restrained
through ‘constitutional law’ and chastised until they reach the requisite
level of maturity. The whole objective of Shari’a is to attain this end of
absolute freedom. This includes the harsh provisions, such as ‘an eye for
an eye’, since these are primary educational tools. The main reason for
aggression by man against his fellow man is a ‘lack of imagination’. But
when an aggressor is made to suffer the same harm he had perpetrated on
a fellow human being, his eye is then opened and he realises the enormity
of what he had done. The ‘Law of Compensation’ is thus a fundamental
law of the creation. As well as being a legislative provision, it is a cosmic
law (for the universe has come into existence through truth and justice
b’il-Haq). Through this law, man draws nearer to God through will and
freedom, while the rest of the inanimate universe obeys God’s will
through coercion. However, this difference is only apparent, since man’s
will is only apparent. The naïve individual may imagine that he/she has a
will and can control his/her action. But a truly knowledgeable individual
would realise that this is mere illusion. In reality, both the unbeliever and
believer obey God and prostrate to His will. Only the true believer does
this willingly and knowingly, while the unbeliever does so without
knowing it. The whole objective of religion is to help attain this stage of
awareness of obedience.
To attain this condition of genuine freedom and knowledge, the
individual can choose to elevate himself/herself to a higher degree of
obedience through strict training, beginning by shunning sins of action,
then sins of speech, and finally sins of thought and even of the
‘unconscious’. The realisation that there is no will but God’s is attained
through strenuous exercises of fasting, prayer and charity. It also reflects
itself in moving beyond justice and retaliation to forgiveness of those who
wrong you, and then caring and loving them. At the level of realisation of
complete absence of will and compete submission to God, the soul attains
absolute peace and identity with self, and then free will again:
Here, the heart bows, forever, at the threshold of the first stage of servitude. Then
the servant is no longer in the complete grip of fate, but with complete free will;
that is because complete obedience to God has raised him to a status of nobility,
handing him over to the freedom of choice; he has obeyed God until God obeyed
him in compensation. He becomes alive though God’s life, and in possession of
God’s knowledge, God’s will and God’s power. He becomes God.
When a person ascends to this level, religious laws no longer apply to
him/her. This is the level of ‘individual Shari’a’, where every person
follows norms appropriate to that level, up to level of ‘absolute individual
freedom’:
And as the conscience becomes progressively more purified, the conduct becomes
more correct and the circle of prohibitions narrows, while the circle of permitted
things widens… When the journey reaches its ultimate end, with a completely
pure heart, all sensible things revert to their original status permissibility.
Islam, New and Old
It is within this overall evolutionary theory of life that Taha proposes his
vision of the ‘Second Message of Islam’. According to Taha, this ‘second
message’ was in fact the first one, revealed in Mecca but rejected by the
Quraysh. Therefore, the message was diluted because humanity was not
at that time capable of shouldering it. Only the Prophet observed the
dictates of this message in his personal conduct. The second message thus
involves reviving the Prophet’s ‘Sunna’ and generalising it to become the
conduct of everyone.
The Shari’a, as it was revealed and applied in the seventh century, was
suitable for that period, but totally incapable of addressing the challenges
of the twentieth. But if we say that the Shari’a is to be suitable for every
time and place, this can be only because it is a living and evolving system.
To launch the second message of Islam, we need to go back to the Qur’an
and read it in a new way. We need a new messenger to receive the new
revelation. This revelation comes directly from God, without the
mediation of the Angel Gabriel, through reading the Qur’an. The new
messenger is someone whom God has endowed with the appropriate level
of comprehension and given permission to speak. And as Christ said, ‘by
their fruits you will know them’.
In reality, Taha argues, the second message of Islam is the only genuine
Islam. He bases this on a rather significant reversal of the accepted
hierarchy between iman (faith, belief) and Islam. Traditionally, it has been
accepted, based on very clear Qur’anic and hadith injunctions, that Islam
is the bare minimum and formal acceptance of the faith, which is followed
by iman, is backed up by dedicated action. Above iman, we find ihsan
(perfection), which is to worship God as if feeling His actual presence.
Taha overrides this hierarchy by postulating two levels of religious
experience, the first (inferior one) is the level of faith, and the second is
the level of knowledge (‘ilm) and truth (haqiqat). In the first level, Islam
is indeed the lowest rung, followed by iman and then ihsan. At the level of
‘ilm, however, we start with ‘ilm al-yaqeen (knowledge of certainty),
followed by ‘ilm ‘ayn al-yaqeen (knowledge of the very certainty), and then
ilm haqq al-yaqeen (knowledge of true certainty). Islam is the level beyond
that third phase.
At this level, Islam was in the past available only to prophets and
exceptional individuals. However, now that humanity has evolved
sufficiently to qualify for accepting this level of Islam, it is time for the
emergence of the first and true Muslim community. Humanity is now
ready for the message because it is sufficiently advanced socially,
intellectually and economically, but impoverished spiritually. This
combination of material advancement and spiritual impoverishment is
the sign that a new dispensation is needed, and only Islam can provide
this dimension.
But Islam provides this in its second message, not in the first. In its new
mission, the norms of Islam in the areas of worship (except for zakah, or
charity) and the areas of justice (including the hudood punishments) need
not be revised, but social and political norms and practices should be. For
example, jihad is not a fundamental precept of Islam, since the original
and fundamental norm is that of individual freedom, so coercion is not
admissible. However, since at that early stage, coercion was appropriate,
jihad was permitted. Similarly, enslavement of individuals was permitted
as a consequence of jihad, and as a concession to prevalent norms. By the
same token, ‘capitalism’ and private property, inequality between men
and women, divorce, hijab and the segregation of men and women, were
all permitted as interim measures, since the societies of the early Islamic
era would not have been able to handle the true injunctions. For example,
the Prophet did not retain any property above his most basic needs, giving
away everything beyond absolute necessity. In this regard, the provisions
of zakah, as the obligatory allocation of a portion (between 2.5% and
10%) of one’s assets or income to charity, is not the true Islamic norm. In
reality, the true Islamic society is a ‘democratic socialist’ system, where
social equality is the norm, and where individual control of means of
production must not be permitted.
If the believers observe these norms of true Islam, they will achieve on
this earth the paradise described in the Qur’an. That divine promise is
‘only a miniature model for the greater paradise, which will be realised
on this earth on which we live today, when it is filled with justice after
having been filled with injustice’:
This is the dream entertained by Marx, but which he has completely missed,
lapsing into error. It will not be realised, however, except by the Muslims, who
have not yet appeared. When they do, part of what God foretold in the verse:
‘Verily, the God-fearing [shall find themselves in the hereafter] amidst gardens and
springs; [having been received with the greeting,] “Enter here in peace, secure!”;
And [by then] We shall have removed whatever unworthy thoughts or feelings may
have been [lingering] in their breasts, [and they shall rest] as brethren, facing one
another [in love] upon thrones of happiness; No weariness shall ever touch them in
this [state of bliss], and never shall they have to forego it.’ This aspect is the
communism which will be achieved by Islam the moment the Muslim umma
appears. At that moment, ‘the earth will shine bright with her Sustainer’s light’,
and God’s grace will fully encompass its inhabitance, and peace will prevail all over
and love will triumph.
Evaluation and Critiques
It is clear from the preceding that there are many aspects of Taha’s thought
which the orthodox will find troubling, beginning with the last point
where paradise is not an alternative to earthly life but a continuation of it.
Then, there is his claim that not only can man become one with God, but
he can become God, and therefore become a law unto himself, with no
need to observe any religious prohibitions or taboos. Such views were
naturally found outrageous by the orthodox, including the Sufis, some of
whom could have become his allies.
The secular components of his theses, including his critiques of Western
civilisation, are not without problems either. This is not least because such
points are often offered in a few paragraphs, and with such generalisations
as ‘man and the universe in philosophical thought’, without citing a single
philosopher. His followers complained that Taha had been systematically
ignored by the intellectuals. This might have been out of deference, since
the secular intellectuals would have to criticise his rather maverick ideas,
which they did not want to do, happy to have him as an ally against the
Islamists and conservatives.
Islamists also ignored Taha’s ideas, concentrating instead on
condemning him as a heretic and attacking him for his alliance with the
Nimeiri dictatorship. In another irony, Nimeiri in fact pursued the
policy of previous regimes of depriving Taha and his followers of any
access to the media. To circumvent this obstacle, the group relied on
innovative methods, such as conducting regular daily debates in
universities and some public squares, in addition to members
volunteering as itinerant sales people to distribute their literature. These
tactics, and the deep isolation nationally and regionally (surrounding
Arab countries were not that receptive either), ensured the membership
remained small, but cohesive.
The main critiques of Taha came from the religious establishment,
which built what one of his supporters described as a ‘broad Islamic
alliance’, made up of the religious establishments in Sudan, Saudi Arabia
and Egypt, backed up by some Islamic movements and a wide array of
religious functionaries (imams, ulama associations, etc.). This alliance
succeeded, as al-Bashir notes, in ‘misleading the peoples of Sudan and
peoples of Islam’ through their anti-Taha propaganda.
Taha’s confrontations with the orthodox religious establishment was a
straightforward issue: the traditionalists rejected his claim of authority to
override accepted dogma and practice on the basis of personal communion
with God, for that amounted to declaring oneself a prophet. But his
conflict with the Sufis, including the group which masterminded his
demise, was more complex. For Sufism does accept the possibility of
direct communion with God, and many renowned Sudanese Sufis had
regularly challenged the authority of the ulama, including a sixteenthcentury
ancestor of Taha, Sheikh Muhammad al-Hamim, who defied the
judge of the day by marrying two sisters and exceeding the limit of four
wives. However, Sudanese Sufis also consistently rejected ‘radical’ claims,
such as those of the Sudanese Mahdi (d. 1885), who claimed communion
with heaven through visions of the Prophet. The judge who tried Taha also
reiterated claims citing Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) that mystical knowledge is
personal and privileged, and should not be shared or used as a basis of
public claims.
Secular critiques, which were rare, centred more on the man’s
obscurantism, his hold on his followers and his ‘reactionary’ views. His
support for the Nimeiri military dictatorship also remained an unresolved
issue. An additional problem is that Taha (and some of his followers, such
the human rights advocate Abdullahi An-Na’im), tend to offer the most
restrictive interpretation of Shari’a (such as that it is lawful to use violence
to force people to accept Islam) in order to justify their arguments that it
should be transcended.
The group now receives little criticism, except from hard-line Islamists,
most probably because it is not seen as threatening. Since the demise of its
charismatic leader, the movement’s already low profile has receded
further into the background. According to the movement’s own
adherents, the membership of the group never exceeded one thousand
followers. However, the movement has witnessed a minor revival recently,
in terms of political and media presence, if not in membership. In 2010,
Taha’s former modest home in Omadurman became the locus of the most
appropriate tribute to the departed thinker: the Ustaz Mahmoud
Muhammad Taha Cultural Centre. Earlier this year, the group applied for
a registration as a political party in Sudan, but its application was rejected
in May 2014 after a challenge from a group of ulama. The issue is currently
being hotly debated, and the Parliament has intervened by summoning the
independent Parties’ Registrar for questioning on the constitutionality of
this rejection.
Conclusion
Taha was no doubt a charismatic and very interesting person, with very
deep conviction. His instincts – if not his practice – were liberal. His
attempt to combine a deep spiritual commitment with similarly strong
liberal convictions is rather unique. His notion of the need for a radical
rethinking of Islamic norms by deepening understanding of its
fundamental values through a process of reflection and rethinking cannot
be disputed. His visions of democracy, including his critiques of Islamist
political leader, Hassan Turabi, are pointers in the right direction.
However, his vision suffers from three main problems: theoretical,
ethical and spiritual. Theoretically, his views are based on a hotchpotch of
amateur physics, amateur anthropology, amateur philosophy and amateur
economics, among others. In his writings, he makes sweeping claims
about the findings of whole disciplines without quoting a single reference
or even mentioning a name. At times, the sources quoted are secondary
translated newspaper or magazine articles. This is deeply problematic,
since he often builds the whole edifice of his theory on such casual claims
(as in his 1960 book Al-Islam, where his proposed ‘spiritual
experimentation’ is entirely premised on the claim that the whole physical
universe is reducible to –and could be explained in reference to –
energy). Similarly, his theories of biological and social human evolution
take for granted Western modernity’s claims about being the most
advanced in all aspects, including ethically, in human history, a
questionable proposition, to put it mildly.
Ethically, Taha faces the dilemma of all modern Muslim ‘liberals’, who
cannot accept the right of Muslim societies to govern themselves, and
advocate what I have elsewhere called the ‘guardianship of the liberal’ (in
contrast to wilayat al-faqih, the guardianship of the religious scholars). This
leads to some stark self-contradictions. For example, Taha rightly and
courageously challenged the decision by Parliament to ban the Communist
Party in 1965, and cited this in supporting Nimeiri’s coup against what he
termed ‘civilian dictatorship’. However, when Nimeiri banned all political
parties, including the Communist Party and Taha’s own party, the archliberal
did not utter a single word of protest. Nimeiri was not satisfied by
just banning parties, but imprisoned hundreds of opponents, and
massacred Mahdists and Communists. He also eliminated media freedom
and judicial autonomy. The democratic system Taha defied did not
imprison the Communists, nor did it interfere with the media or freedom
of speech. But Taha was content to support a regime which perpetrated
far worse transgressions than the ones he had so vehemently decried. In
fact, the Republicans continued to support the dictatorship, issuing a
pamphlet as late as 1979 justifying this position.
Spiritually and theologically, Taha’s position poses the most serious
problem. His notion that the believer, by immersing himself in the Qur’an
and engaging in spiritual exercises of fasting and seclusion, could receive
‘revelation’ poses a serious challenge about what happens if different
individuals receive conflicting revelations. More fundamentally, what is
the mechanism of determining when a revelation is authentic as opposed
to a mere hallucination? This is not just a theoretical problem, since
throughout Islamic (and Sudanese) history, many claimants of ‘Mahdist’
and other missions have emerged. Some, like the Sudanese Mahdi, have
demonstrated deep convictions and admirable selflessness. But does that
guarantee authenticity?
In any case, the spiritual dimension is not Taha’s most enduring legacy,
since the mystical experience he advocates is by nature not communicable
or replicable. None of his followers had claimed to have attained his level
of perfection, as far as we know. His legacy has thus restricted itself to
three areas: a cultural and intellectual dimension of diffuse liberalism,
propagated by the Taha Cultural Centre and in the writings of select
followers; a political dimension, also disseminated through the activism of
the writings of his remaining followers; and a legal dimension propagated,
almost single-handedly, by Emory University’s Abdullahi An-Na’im, and
becoming more and more detached from the original mystical foundation,
and tending to be plain liberal and secular.
In a characteristic statement made by Taha when he was condemned by
the first ‘Apostasy Court’ in 1968, he said that he did not blame his
adversaries, who believed that Shari’a as they understood it was the last
word in matters of Islam, for not understanding him. ‘If they were sincere
in their own sphere [of understanding], then even if they condemn us as
apostates and decree our death, they could be considered Mujahids and
we become martyrs if they succeed in killing us. But if they are not
sincere, then their acts are rather trivial. And we know that they are not
sincere in their own sphere, since they have always been tools in the hands
of authorities’.
The same test of sincerity could be applied to Taha and his followers.
But sincerity in itself is no guarantee of validity or truthfulness.
http://www.musliminstitute.org/blogs/crhttp://www.musliminstitute.org/blogs/cr ... eethinkers
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