Hasan Al-Turabi, the Last of the Islamists : The Man and His Times 1932–2016

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. Cover 1 Ḥasan al-Turabi: The Last of the Islamists 2 Ḥasan al-Turabi: The Last of the Islamists: The Man and His Times 1932–2016 4 Copyright page 5 Contents 8 Preface 10 Acknowledgments 18 The Man 22 Chapter 1 24 An Introduction 24 Notes 41 Chapter 2 46 Childhood, Family, Environment 46 The Cognitive Machine of the State: Colonization of Religion and the Formation of the Sudanese as Subjects of the State 48 Time Past and Time Future 57 Notes 62 Chapter 3 70 Ḥasan al-Turabi School Days 70 Ḥantoub and After: The Fruits of Public Education 71 First: The Creation of the Community of the State 73 Second: The Modernization of Poverty 77 Third: The Visible Hand of Totalitarianism from Colonization of Sudanese Lifeworld to Savage Separation of Religion and the State 81 Notes 89 The Islamist 94 Chapter 4 96 The Great Transformation 96 Urban Capitalism 102 Rural Capitalism 105 The Islamist Capitalism and its Patterns of Stratification 107 Notes 116 Chapter 5 122 The Road to Islamism 122 The Historiography of Sudanese Islamism 125 What Is Islamism? 127 Provincializing of Sudanese Islamism 133 Babikir Karrar Factor 139 Notes 141 Chapter 6 146 From Ḥasan to Dr. Ḥasan 146 Islamism and Campus Nobility 146 The Anglo-French Factor 159 Notes 165 From the Revolution to Counterrevolution 170 Chapter 7 172 October: The Revolution and Its Generation 172 October 1964, the Revolution, its People, and The Premises of Modernity 174 Search for a State as a Structure of Intelligibility 175 Discourse of Liberation: Civil Religion 177 Counterrevolution 184 The Counterrevolution Forerunners 186 Notes 197 Chapter 8 200 October: Counterrevolution and Its Discontents 200 Brothers in God, Enemies in Life 202 The Salafi Factor: A bluff or a Deal 210 How al-Turabi Islamism Became Possible 212 Notes 218 The ShAIkh 222 Chapter 9 224 The Two Tails of Counterrevolution 224 Counter-Revolution: The Art of a Bluff not the Art of a Deal 228 Outline of the Topography of the Counter-Revolution as a State: The Banality of Evil 236 Notes 243 Chapter 10 246 No Turban No Crown 246 Who Is ‘ALĪ ‘OSMĀN? 247 Absence as an Opportunity 251 Notes 264 Chapter 11 268 The Anatomy of Death 268 The Islamist State Model and Its Discontents 269 Al-Turabi in Prison 273 The Salafi/Shii Factor 275 Playing the Terrorism Card 282 The End 287 Notes 288 Chapter 12 294 Conclusion 294 Notes 302 Bibliography 306 Index 314 About the Author 324 Appendix 304 The book investigates the life and times of Hasan al-Turabi as the last of the Islamists. It provides an entry to first Islamist state in the Sunni World and the failure of its leader and his disciples.