Many of the brothers told me of a basic Republican philosophy that they had learned from Ustadh Mahmoud. He taught them that one’s mind, words, and deeds all must be in sync; in other words, that it was essential that your thoughts, words and actions be linked in a unity of purpose. And that purpose, ultimately, was peace. I appreciated how this perspective was usually communicated to me visually by the speaker of this mantra gently touching his or her head, lips, and heart to indicate the connections. It sounded easy enough, reminding me initially of California New Age feel-good spirituality. But I quickly realized that this was a very serious, scripturally based behavioral methodology that the collective of the Republican brothers and sisters worked on together, checking and encouraging each other in its practice and on improving it. It was a challenging method to stick to, and with the brothers I frequently observed that there was even a competitive element to succeeding in strengthening one’s practice. I observed, tried to practice, but managed to stay out of the competition, part of my strategy of trying not to draw attention to myself. I was emphatic about being in Sudan to learn and never be in the position of the all-knowing khabir ajanabi (“foreign expert”) who had descended on Sudan to impart knowledge. The khabir ajanabi was actually a set character from Egyptian/Sudanese films and soap operas whose role came up when discussing foreigners who actually did not know enough to be very useful to the local circumstances—not a role I wanted to play in Sudan.
Mahmoud Mohamed Taha’s vision for humankind was soaring. His sources included an amalgam of mystical reflection, deep knowledge and understanding of the Qur’an, and immersion in study of the life of the Prophet Mohamed, not unlike what many of the Muslim thinkers associated with Sufism had done in the past. But Ustadh Mahmoud’s vision also came out of his own life experience, exposure to modern education and the difficult challenges of Sudan’s independence struggle. Although Ustadh Mahmoud and the Republicans were careful to distinguish between themselves and the “conventional Sufis,” there was certainly something mystical to his methods of concentration on prayer and on the Qur’an that led to the unity of his thinking and action. Progressive improvement in the practice of prayer and in being a Republican was always the intention.
“Unity,” al-towhid, or “monotheism,” was the concept and the goal very much at the center of the Republican ideology as communicated by Mahmoud Mohamed Taha. It was at once beautifully simple and utterly complex. As I tried to wrestle with it, I grew to understand that the complexity of the Republican message was what kept many Sudanese from joining the Republican Brotherhood. I was raised a Boston Catholic and the external simplicity of Islam is what initially attracted me to the faith. To profess Islam one simply recites as a believer the core shahada, or “witness,” that there is No God But God and Mohamed Is His Prophet (la ilaha l’allah wa Mohamdun rasulullah). And then I was moved by visits to small villages along the Blue Nile where I had watched very old men take it upon themselves to demonstrate prayer to me, performing their ablutions while balancing on one crouched foot, and then falling from a standing position to their knees in a graceful motion, touching their foreheads to the ground in prayer. Shahada and prayer were the essences of Muslim life, and many deeply believing people in Sudan felt that it should not be more complicated than that, that no one should be in possession of “secret knowledge” of God’s ways; no one should have to explain Islam to the true believer.
But the critical point of the Republican movement was that in order to promote and practice the Islam left to us by the Prophet Mohamed in these modern times, we must delve deeply into the meaning of the Qur’an and instruct ourselves, or reinstruct ourselves, in the path of Islam followed by the Prophet himself. Humankind had become distracted, and it was time to restore the Path of the Prophet as the way a Muslim worships God, while never losing sight of the goal of self-actualization.
Because of the careful instruction and warm socialization of the brotherhood I had found in Omdurman, I decided that I would follow this particular path to Islam. I chose this group more on the basis of my rapid inclusion initially than, I would have to admit, on being convinced of the power or veracity of its message. I often thought about how my knowledge of Arabic and Islam were developing as they would in a Sudanese childhood—through social learning—and I spent time trying to understand this process. But I also quickly became aware that my choice of the Republicans was a controversial one in Sudan, that there were competing platforms for the Muslim soul. I needed to learn more about why I was satisfied with my choice to join these educated, progressive, welcoming people, and why that choice would make many Muslim activists in Sudan angry.
I also frequently reflected on my decision to embrace Islam, which, considering who I was and where I had come from, was probably more significant than my choice of following Ustadh Mahmoud. There is an expectation from childhood in Muslim culture that families will teach their children verses of the Qur’an, which they will commit to memory. Many children compete in festive tournaments where they exhibit how much they have memorized and/or the quality of their tajweed, or recitation, skills. The first chapter that I memorized was al-Ikhlas, “Sincerity,” which is the chapter that virtually all Muslims have memorized because of its brevity. It reads in translation,
Say: He is Allah, The One and Only;
Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
He begetteth not, Nor is He begotten;
And there is none like unto Him.
I learned this verse while also learning its meaning. The irony struck me immediately and seemed to me a dramatic signal of my new religious orientation. I had been a Christian, and this verse spelled out clearly the Islamic take on Christianity’s vision of the Son of God. Monotheism, tawhid in Arabic, was very much the central idea of Islam and the driving force behind all of Ustadh Mahmoud’s thinking.
When I visited Rufa’a, Mahmoud Mohamed Taha’s hometown about a hundred miles south of Khartoum on the east bank of the Blue Nile, I often walked past the khalwa, the small retreat house where Ustadh Mahmoud spent two years in spiritual isolation after his imprisonment in the late 1940s. It was essentially a one-room building with a rukuba lean-to porch where one could enjoy a breeze from the giant river. The house was in the compound of his in-laws, and it was that family that cared for him during his period of reflection and isolation, a process known in Arabic as khalwa, which refers both to the act and place of retreat.
Rufa’a became my own retreat from the intense center of the Republican Brotherhood movement in Omdurman. In Rufa’a I could relax, enjoy family life, and ask my questions about the Republican ideology of people who had been living it for decades, in some cases, since the independence movement. And there were few dawn meetings, like there were at my house with the brothers in Omdurman. The members of the Rufa’a community of brothers and sisters were farmers, small shopkeepers, and primarily teachers in the many schools in the area, a region that had pioneered modern schooling during the colonial era. This community essentially adopted me, or claimed me, really, and helped me grasp the details of Ustadh Mahmoud’s thinking over wonderful meals and talk and tea and river walks. In other words, I could see the Republican theory, the method I heard so much about in Omdurman, put into action in the daily lives of the brothers and sisters, my family, in Rufa’a. Ustadh Khalid El Haj, a long-time high school teacher and principal, and one of Ustadh Mahmoud’s closest followers since the 1960s, became an important interpreter for me of the philosophy and its theology. He had authored a number of the Republican tracts and spoke authoritatively about Republican theology both patiently to me and as a public speaker to crowds, particularly at university sites in the capital. My “Rufa’a seminar” that deepened my understanding of Republican thinking came as a unified package in that it was delivered in the context of its practical application and in the town where that thinking was born. As everyone around me had a “village” of an ancestral nature to call home, I adopted Rufa’a as mine. In those early days, getting to Rufa’a was an adventure in itself, down the Medani road to Hassaheisa, and then a wait for the pontoon ferry across the Blue Nile.
Mahmoud
