Visjonen om det nye sudanske mennesket: Den sudanske dāʿiya som politisk og ideologisk aktivist anno 1988

Abstract

The political activists of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan have been a little explored subject of study throughout the history of the rise of the country’s Islamic Movement until 1989. Most of the research published on the field provides the credit (or discredit) of the movement’s political successes to their political and ideological leaders, such as Hassan al-Turabi. Little focus is given to the organization’s active members. This thesis argues they earn a place among the movement’s and country’s complicated history, through an analysis of how the National Islamic Front’s (NIF) party activists (al-duʿā) are presented in their Cultural Program dated June 1988, contextualized with a political and ideological angle. The Sudan in 1988 was a war-torn country with many societal and structural problems. The Cultural Program, through the NIF party activists, may be viewed as a solution to these problems, although some of these problems partly was created by NIF. The solutions provided by the Cultural Program are thus not only political or societal in nature, but also part of an Islamist vision. The party activists who were supposed to be educated through the Cultural Program, were meant to be NIF’s tool to achieve their cultural and religious goals for the Sudanese society. These goals included, among others, full reform of the individual’s faiths, morals, actions, spiritual consciousness - a comprehensive cultural awakening.