My Memories of the Late Imam al-Sadig al-Mahdi God have Mercy on him By Mahmoud A. Suleiman

00:07 AM November, 26 2020

Sudanese Online
Mahmoud A. Suleiman-UK
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This article comes against the backdrop of the saddening news in the headlines of the News Media reporting the departure of the Ansar Sect leader Imam Al-Sadig Al-Mahdi and Sudan’s former Democratically elected Prime Minister and Political leader who sadly passed away leaving this mortal world, on Thursday the Twenty-Sixth of November 2020; the newspapers reported that the cause of the death of the late Imam al-Sadig Al-Mahdi is the respiratory disease for which he was hospitalised in the United Arab Emirates immediately after his infection. https://sudantribune.com/spip.php؟article70140
We pray to Allah (SWT) Almighty to accept him in the gardens of the Supreme Paradise with the martyrs, the prophets, the righteous, and the goodness of those companions and may Allah (SWT) bless them all.
At this juncture, I thought that it is my duty to remember or mention the stations during life in which I met the late Imam al-Ansar al-Sadig al-Mahdi, may God accept him with the righteous and forgive him.
I met Imam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi for the first time in my life when I was a first year Preliminary Student aka “Prel” at the Faculty of Science of the University of Khartoum where an elder colleague of ours and from the Darfur Province whose ancestors belonged to the Ansar Sect, his name was Ali Omer al-Bushari, he invited us and led us to the home of Sayed al-Sadig al-Mahdi who greeted us warmly and asked us to what we would like to drink for his hospitality. Nevertheless, he did not wait for an answer from us, and said, “I will offer you a drink of a Kerkaday, that is, a drink of Hibiscus.” And he added saying: because you are from the Darfur Province, which is famous for its cultivation! Al-Sayed al-Sadig Al-Mahdi was at the time a young man and he did not hold a political position. The home we met Sayed al-Sadig Al-Mahdi was the neighbourhood of Mulazmeen, in the City of Omdurman.
As for the Second time I met with Mr. Sadig al-Mahdi, together with a group of students of the University of Khartoum, along with students from the Higher Teacher Training Institute and the masses of the Sudanese people during the October 21st Popular Sudanese Revolution in the year 1964, when the people gathered in the Mawlid Square, which is now called the Family Club in Khartoum. We were at the time around the body of my former class-mate at El-Fasher Secondary School, late martyr of the revolution, Ahmed Al-Gurashi Taha. And Sayed Al-Sadig Al-Mahdi was the Imam of the funeral prayer for the late Ahmed Al-Gurashi Taha, as the body was being prepared for its transfer to his home village of Al-Garrasa in the White Nile region. As for the third and last time of my meeting with the late Sayed Imam Al-Sadig al-Mahdi, was during the Sudan Call Alliance that crucially united the core of a formerly fragmented political and armed Movements opposition on issues of national governance for the first time, calling for a peaceful and popular democratic transformation. Al-Mahdi was in France within the activities of the Sudan Call Forces, where Imam Al-Sadiq had chaired the sessions that included representatives of armed struggle movements, Sudanese political parties and civil society organisation committees. I met the late Imam al-Mahdi and I was honoured to attend those meetings as a political civilian member of one of the armed struggle movements. And the Imam acted in his capacity of chairmanship of the Sudan Call Alliance meetings with dignity, know-how and respect for the other; God Bless him.
During these saddening moments, I extend my heartfelt condolences to the family of the late Sayed Sadig al-Mahdi al-Imam of the Ansar sect and to the membership of the National Umma Party (NUP) and to his family, especially his daughter Dr. Maryam Al-Mansoura Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi who had a presence in all important Sudanese political forums until the Sudanese people managed to overthrow the ruling regime of the National Congress Party (NCP) and ousted the criminal of génocidaire Omer Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir. Furthermore, our condolences go out to the entire Sudanese people, and we pray to God Almighty to grant patience and solace to all the Sudanese people.
We belong to God and to Him we shall return, and there is no strength or power except in God.

Dr. Mahmoud A. Suleiman is an author, columnist and a blogger. His blog is http://thussudan.wordpress.com/http://thussudan.wordpress.com/