Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious
Discourse on Faith, Renewal, and Ijtihād

Gubara Said Hassan and Jabal M. Buaben

Abstract

The role of Islamic intellectuals is not confined to elaborating on
the religious ideology of Islam. Equally important is their role in
setting this religious ideology against other ideologies, sharpening
and clarifying their differences, and thereby developing and inten-
sifying one’s commitment to Islam as a distinct, divinely based ide-
ology. Islam, as both a religion and an ideology, simultaneously
mobilizes and transforms, legitimizes and preserves. It can be an
instrument of power, a source and a guarantee of its legitimacy, as
well as a tool to be used in the political struggle among social
classes. Islam can also present a challenge to authority whenever
the religious movement questions the existing social order during
times of crisis and raises a rival power, as the current situation in
Sudan vividly demonstrates. Throughout his political career, Hassan
al-Turabi has resorted to religious symbolism in his public discourse
and/or Islamic rhetoric, which could often be inflammatory and
heavily reliant upon the Qur’an. This is, in fact, the embodiment of
the Islamic quest for an ideal alternative. Our paper focuses on this
charismatic and pragmatic religio-political leader of Sudan and the
key concepts of his religious discourse: faith (īmān), renewal
(tajdīd), and ijtihād (rational, independent, and legal reasoning). 

Keywords: Hassan al-Turabi, Islam, discourse, faith (īmān), re-
newal (tajdīd), ijtihād

Gubara Said Hassan is originally from Sudan and currently teaches “Islamic Governance and
International Relations” at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam. He is also an adjunct professor at
the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Canada. Jabal M. Buaben, formerly of the
School of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham, UK, is an associate professor at
the Sultan Omar Saifuddien Centre for Islamic Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam.



Introduction
Charismatic personalities and leaders have emerged from among the believers
in the Judaic, Christian and Islamic faiths during the long histories of these
world religious traditions. They have dedicated themselves to interpreting and
renewing the religious zealousness and defending the communal identity or
ideational affiliation of their followers and supporters. 

This paper focuses on Hassan al-Turabi, the charismatic and pragmatic
religio-political leader of Sudan and the key concepts of his religious dis-
course: faith (īmān), renewal (tajdīd), and ijtihād (rational and independent
reasoning). Through his vivid textual/written discourse and dramatic political
actions, he magnifies the Islamic beliefs and virtues that set his Popular Con-
gress Party (PCP) apart from the animist and Christian Republic of South
Sudan and the non-Muslim/believers at large. Al-Turabi has added a new twist
to this by adopting a unique style of ideology and political activism that the
western academia and media have come to colorfully depict as “Islamic fun-
damentalism,” awakening, renewal, revival, the “Green Peril,” Islamism, and
radicalism.

First, we seek to indicate that political Islam, as represented by al-Turabi’s
religious discourse, is the affirmation of religious/Islamic authority as holistic
and absolute. It is expressed through the collective demand that specific creedal
and ethical dictates derived from the Qur’an and Sunnah be publicly recognized
and legally enforced. It is also, as C. S. Liebman states, “a mode of thought
and action that entails the rejection of those surrounding cultural forms and
values perceived as non-indigenous (or inauthentic) to the religious tradition.
And in order to bolster this rejection, specific key components of the tradition
have to be reinvigorated and intensified.”1

Second, political Islam is not only a political movement that aspires to re-
structure the existing system(s) on Islamic foundations, but is equally an intel-
lectual one that provides philosophical principles that have evolved into a
system of thought. The role of Islamic intellectuals is not confined to elaborat-
ing Islam’s religious ideology. Equally important is their role in setting such
religious ideology against other “positivist” ideologies (e.g., Marxism and Lib-
eralism), sharpening and clarifying differences and thereby developing and in-
tensifying one’s commitment to Islam as a distinct, divinely based ideology.

Furthermore, Islam as an ideology simultaneously mobilizes and trans-
forms, legitimizes and preserves. It can be an instrument of power, a source
and guarantee of its legitimacy, and a weapon to be used in the political strug-
gle among various social classes. Islam can also serve as a challenge to au-
thority whenever the religious movement questions the existing social order

76 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



during times of crisis and raise a rival power, as the current situation in Sudan
vividly demonstrates. Ideologues of political Islam also oppose the “prevail-
ing ethos” – whether they define it as sectarian, tribal, secular, modernist, or
western – and oppose those with political power who perpetuate it. Moreover,
they resort to religious symbolism in their public discourse or/and Islamic
rhetoric. This discourse, which is inflammatory, inflationary, and heavily re-
liant upon divine scripture, became the embodiment of the Islamic quest for
an ideal alternative. 

Third, only a few thinkers have played a pivotal role in forming and then
disseminating the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) thought and actions in Sudan
and those of their offshoots, the National Islamic Front (NIF) or the currently
split National Salvation Revolution. One person stands out as having exerted
a lasting influence on the ideological foundations of these organizations’
thought on a national scale: Hassan al-Turabi. This paper considers the reli-
gious contribution of this intellectual and ideologue par excellence of the for-
mer NIF. We confine ourselves to discussing his religious discourse and
political activism, but with some objectives in mind: (1) a concise biographical
account and how he came to adhere to Sudan’s Muslim Brotherhood Move-
ment and eventually become its leader; and (2) the genesis and evolution of
this figures ideas, which helped create a counter-ideological movement. A de-
tailed discussion of al-Turabi’s thought is in order because he is the actual fig-
urehead and ideologue of the country’s Muslim Brotherhood at its highest
stage in the NIF. 

A Concise life History
Al-Turabi was born in Kassala, eastern Sudan, on February 1, 1932, to a fam-
ily with a long established tradition of Islamic learning and Sufism, a heritage
that he has said was critical to his intellectual growth. Judith Miller quotes
him as saying: “My grandfather was a famous scholar. He worked for public
life and welfare and struggled against the government of those days. Turabi’s
grandfather was imprisoned for seven days for opposing the Anglo-Egyptian
Condominium.”2

The young al-Turabi also inherited other specific qualities: a passion for
law, a love of travel, and an intimate knowledge of Islam, the Qur’an and Sun-
nah, and Arabic language and literature in particular. He received his elemen-
tary education in Kordofan, western Sudan, and spent his intermediate school
years in Wad Medani, central Sudan. He also attended the higher secondary
school in Hantoub, near Wad Medani. These three schools were English-

Hassan and Buaben: Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious Discourse 77



speaking, secular, and run by the British. In an interview with Miller, al-Turabi
acknowledged that he had the advantage of a double source of education: tra-
ditional religious and modern secular learning.3 This dual education and train-
ing, along with an excellent knowledge of English and later French and
German, would eventually serve him well, for unlike many other leading Is-
lamic ideologues, al-Turabi is comfortable addressing both western and non-
western audiences. Despite graduating from Gordon Memorial College (now
the University of Khartoum) in 1955 with a law degree, he declined to practice
on the ground that there was no room for independent thought in legal practice.
He “was of the view that the lawyer is literally forced to argue on behalf of
the client because of the payment of legal fees.”4

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood founded a chapter in the Sudan in
1949, after which some Hantoub secondary school students became members.
According to Hassan Mekki, the movement’s principal historian, al-Sa’im
Muhammed Ibrahim, a former teacher at Wad Madeni intermediate school,
who had gone to Cairo for further study, played a significant role in the
branch’s foundation. He visited that secondary school in 1949 to see some of
his former students and friends, most prominent among whom were Babikir
Karrar and Muhammed Yousuf Muhammed. He informed them about the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Anti-Communist League of Sudanese
Students and suggested they set up a branch there. However,

When the Hantoub group went to Gordon Memorial College the following
year, they were shocked to find it completely controlled by communists.
Faced with this situation, Karrar suggested to Muhammed Yousuf that they
revive the idea conveyed to them earlier by Al Sa’im. A group of six people
came together to draft a constitution for the movement which was called
Harakat al-Tahrīr al-Islāmī (the Islamic Liberation Movement). It was a
counter-movement which used Islam as a point of departure.5

Al-Turabi was not among the founding fathers. In fact, he only became
became active in Islamic student politics in 1954, when the Eid Congress was
convened. Those present included al-Turabi and passed resolutions that would
give the mainstream Islamist movement its shape. First, it was decided to of-
ficially adopt the name al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (the Muslim Brothers) in order
to represent the triumph of those who identified strongly with the parent move-
ment in Egypt and who took pride in its history and accomplishments. 

The idea of an Islamic constitution as a means to influence Sudanese pol-
itics and society was adopted. After it became clear by late 1955 that inde-
pendence was coming, the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood hastened to form

78 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



the Islamic Front for the Constitution (IFC) in December 1955. The IFC “pro-
duced a ‘model constitution’, which envisaged a parliamentary system with
regional devolution in a unitary state. It also paid great attention to economic
organization, reflecting the socialist phase of the movement. It called for land
reform, public ownership of mineral resources and nationalization of banks,
in addition to specifically to Islamic reforms such as the prohibition of interest
on loans.”6 However, despite the fiery campaign for an Islamic constitution,
the movement remained on the margins of national politics and society. But
their success in putting the document on the political agenda and forcing all
of the traditional sectarian political parties to consider it did not translate into
practical results. Furthermore, internal splits within the IFC’s ranks eventually
led to its failure and collapse.

After the IFC’s demise, al-Turabi went to Britain to continue his post-
graduate studies at the University of London. He earned his MA in law in
1957, a year after General Ibrahim Abboud’s military coup, and went on to
Paris in 1959, where he obtained his PhD from the Sorbonne in 1964. Al-
Turabi returned to Khartoum in the summer of 1964 to teach at the University
of Khartoum’s Faculty of Law. His higher education enhanced his social status
and made him a superstar within the MB’s ranks, which were socially and po-
litically marginalized, as well as intensely faction-ridden, when he arrived on
the scene of Sudanese politics. Since his political inclination was political
pragmatism from the outset, he argued that the Muslim Brothers should op-
pose Abboud’s military government because its goals were in no way close
to those of Islam and because its reign was based on “tyranny, oppression and
espionage” and on the denial of shūrā (consultation). 

In addition, al-Turabi opined that “the activities of the military negatively
affected the image of Islam and the general social morality.”7 He proceeded to
outline a strategy that would bring the unpopular military regime to its knees
by calling for a broad, unified coalition that included the principal sectarian
and traditional political parties as well as the southern political groups with
whom the regime was waging a bloody civil war. Al-Turabi defended peaceful
opposition and resistance that would include mass strikes, street demonstra-
tions, petitions, and internal and external anti-regime propaganda.

These early attitudes reflect his inclination to acquire political expertise
whenever and wherever the MB could, even if it meant violating the Brothers’
strict dogma and abandoning its tight-knit elitist approach to organization, re-
cruitment, and indoctrination. Al-Turabi’s entrance into national politics can
thus be attributed to Abboud’s downfall, triggered by the 1964 October Rev-
olution. Although he managed to gain a “high profile” during the revolution,

Hassan and Buaben: Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious Discourse 79



he was shocked by the breadth and ferocity of the popular opposition. His sig-
nificant role in the mass mobilization campaign to bring the military regime
to an end and restore liberal democracy made him well-known throughout the
country.

Following this revolution, al-Turabi was appointed dean of the university’s
Faculty of Law and selected as the MB’s secretary general. From Miller’s ob-
servation, his expertise in public oration and excellent inter-personal relations
enabled al-Turabi to reach out a large section of the Brothers, much to the
concern of the elites and older militants. To the older generation al-Turabi’s
ideas about “democracy, the role of women in society, and independent judi-
ciary were matters of great worry.”8

As al-Turabi’s hegemony over the Brotherhood expanded and his star rose,
he formed the Islamic Charter Front (ICF; Jabhat al-Mithaq al-Islami) to cam-
paign for the adoption of an Islamic constitution and to continue the fight
against their historical rivals: the communists. The MB’s conspiratorial actions
and the traditional sectarian political parties’ actions against the communists
raised serious controversy and questions about the depth of their ideological
commitment to liberal democracy. According to Peter Nyot Kok

More damaging to their liberal democratic credentials … was their promi-
nent role in mobilizing the Assembly to defy the High Court, which had
ruled in favour of the unseated Communist members by declaring the con-
stitutional amendments (for banning the SCP-Sudanese Communist Party)
unconstitutional.9

Such in-fighting resulted in “parliamentary paralysis” and “loss of confi-
dence” in liberal democracy. Disenchantment, deteriorating economic condi-
tions, and an escalating bloody civil war set the stage for the yet another
military coup on May 25, 1969, under the command of Colonel Ja’far Nu-
meiri. On the eve of this coup, the Islamic majority of the Legislative Assem-
bly had agreed to implement an Islamic constitution. The coup by Numeiri
and his communist allies in the armed forces convinced many Brothers, in-
cluding their charismatic leader, that the path to their aspired-for Islamic state
could best be achieved by collaborating with the military. Al-Turabi, therefore,
changed his October Revolution commitment to liberal democracy and ad-
vocated cooperation with Numeiri’s dictatorial regime once it became clear
that Numeiri had replaced his communist ideology with an Islamic one in
1977, following the National Reconciliation deal.

One direct consequence of this deal was that Numeiri promoted many top
Brothers, including al-Turabi, to high governmental posts. “Politically the

80 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



Brothers achieved just what Turabi had sought, namely their emergence as a
well-organized and well-funded political force, which could no longer be ig-
nored”10 and marginalized. This collaboration also enabled them to gradually
infiltrate the armed forces, police, and security and intelligence departments
of the state, a significant factor in the military coup of June 30, 1989, master-
minded by the Brotherhood. 

However, al-Turabi came to see that his pragmatic strategy of collabora-
tion was not without its risks. As corruption increased, momentum in the mil-
itary regime and Numeiri’s policies proved unable to resolve Sudan’s
deteriorating economic conditions and social ills, al-Turabi and the MB shared
the blame. Ironically, his political standing and credibility were inadvertently
saved at the last moment by Numeiri’s himself. Suspecting that al-Turabi and
the MB could not be trusted, in 1985 he had al-Turabi arrested and imprisoned.
Shortly thereafter, Numeiri’s regime was overthrown by another bloodless mil-
itary coup led by Siwar al-Dahab, his minister of defence, who was determined
to restore democracy and end the devastating civil war. After al-Turabi and his
brother-in-law al-Sadiq al-Mahdi were released from the notorious Cober
prison, he was able to claim that he also had suffered greatly under Numeiri’s
dictatorship.

The following pages will, first, present a concise critical assessment of
Sudan’s third democratic experience (1986-89) and see how its abysmal failure
provoked al-Turabi’s own coup on June 30, 1989. They will then survey his
religious discourse along with its key concepts and essential attributes. 

Sudan’s Third Democratic Experience:
A Critical Assessment
With Numeiri’s military dictatorship brought to an end, the victorious Su-
danese people transformed, in Chinua Achebe’s words, “their world with the-
ories and slogans into a new heaven and a new earth of brotherhood, affluence,
justice, peace and freedom.”11 Popular euphoria was high and expectations
were great and widespread – at least a democratically elected government and
those politicians would not repeat the grave mistakes of the past.

Sudan’s historical political experience should have taught the politicians
that they had no alternative but to work diligently as a national team to avert
further the unholy trinity of political chaos, economic decay and social decline.
However, and in betrayal of all great hopes, Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi
and his newly established Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) partners imme-
diately transformed their historical mutual mistrust and scepticism into a

Hassan and Buaben: Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious Discourse 81



power-struggle to gratify personal ambitions. Party politics in the aftermath
of the April 1985 uprising were antagonistic in the extreme. The political arena
witnessed sectarian battles between the traditional Umma and DUP parties,
intra-party factional battles, and yet more infighting among the communists,
the Muslim Brothers, and their splinter group the National Islamic Front (NIF).
Al-Turabi, the NIF’s leader, had already considered joining the government
during the Umma-DUP wrangle in May 1987, but was unable to obtain any
support from his own party. Younger Islamic militants felt that there was more
to gain in political opposition than in associating with an ineffectual, increas-
ingly discredited, sectarian, and rivalry-ridden coalition government.

John Garang de Mapior, the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement/Army (SPLM/A), soon criticized the Transitional Military Council
(TMC), which was formed directly after the April 1985 uprising, as the con-
tinuation of Numeiri’s rule. The TMC lost the sympathy of the political forces,
especially the professional associations and trade unions. The clash over the
Shari‘ah had a negative impact on the peace negotiations to resolve the coun-
try’s bloody civil war; in fact, it engendered more uncertainty and frustration
and dealt a heavy blow to Sudan’s faltering economy. This situation led to
narrow personal aspirations and attachment to sectarian groups instead of to
the national cause.”12 The end result was paralysis.

Plagued by paralyzing sectarian infighting and rivalry, a-Mahdi was
forced to dissolve his second cabinet in late 1987. To broaden the democratic
regime’s governmental base, he opened a prolonged dialogue with the NIF.
In May 1988 he reached an agreement with the DUP and the Turabi-led NIF
in a third coalition, dubbed the “Government of National Reconciliation.” In
reality, however, this coalition was so volatile, due to the antagonisms among
the Umma Party, the DUP, and the NIF, that it eventually became politically
unmanageable. Al-Turabi was, in fact, using his presence in the government
to continue the historical pressure for reintroducing and reapplying the
Shari‘ah and forming the Islamic society and state that he wanted. While
pressing his Islamic agenda, he also placed his Muslim Brothers in key posi-
tions throughout the government that he vowed to uphold. Meanwhile, the
faltering economy cried out for immediate relief.

The economic problem was the second major failure that bedevilled the
third Sudanese democratic experience. “Decades of economic mismanage-
ment and corruption had left the Sudan with an economy in chaos.”13 The na-
tional infrastructure had fallen into disrepair, public services ranged from
indifferent to non-existent, and, worst of all, millions of displaced and impov-
erished inhabitants were living outside the modern sector with no amenities

82 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



whatsoever. The public sector, potentially the most significant contributor to
Sudan’s output, was hobbled by governmental neglect and mismanagement.
Petroleum potential went untapped due to the ongoing bloody civil war, and
unemployment forced up to 1.6 million skilled workers and professionals to
migrate to the oil-rich Gulf States and Libya.

Great scope existed for improving agriculture, which already furnished a
livelihood for 80% of the population, 40% of the gross national product (GNP),
and 90% of export earnings. However, large government-dominated agricul-
tural schemes were mired in bureaucracy and poor infrastructure. Productivity
and export earnings actually declined, a blow to government revenues and the
economy as a whole. Many Sudanese hoped that the new democratic experi-
ence, along with management and policy reforms, would improve efficiency
and attract foreign investment. However, as G. Norman Anderson states,

nature presented obstacles. Against optimism stood the latest setback to Su-
danese agriculture: drought and famine in 1984-85. … Since Sudan lacked
few of the biblical plagues – drought, locusts, rats and epidemics such as
encephalitis and typhus – the new democracy seemed likely to be bedevilled
by natural disasters.14

Even worse, two more serious economic problems confronted the coali-
tion government: the foreign debt crisis and Sudan’s relations with its credi-
tors. The national debt was insurmountable, for the country could not pay back
more than a fraction of its debt that had “grown progressively from $3 billion
in 1978 to about $9 billion in 1986. Further, the sharp fall of industrial and
agricultural output and the pressure of huge numbers of refugees from neigh-
bouring countries had aggravated the situation. Regime change was not the
panacea.”15 This enormous debt problem forced the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) to intervene in the country’s financial
management. The IMF and some western creditors demanded severe belt-
tightening measures as a condition for additional aid.

On top of all of this, Sudan was burdened by rampant corruption. The
state’s economic failures had forced a few officials to resort to corrupt methods
to supplement their incomes. Looking at the situation by examining three major
types of economic corruption stemming primarily from hold on public office,
El Wathiq Kameir and Ibrahim Kursany observed: 

In the present historical and political circumstances, the state has become the
principal entree through which aspiring segments of the petty-bourgeoisie
have been able to transform themselves into property-owning individuals.16

Hassan and Buaben: Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious Discourse 83



The state’s inability to stabilize the chaotic political arena and control the
economic disarray and corruption was accompanied by its failure to find a
peaceful resolution to the civil war, which had the potential to shatter Sudan’s
third democratic experience. The logical response was for the armed forces,
this time supported by al-Turabi’s Islamic discourse and ideology, to impose
the alternative of an “Islamic state.” The following section will survey this
discourse, as manifested in its key concepts: faith, renewal, and ijtihād. 

In The Beginning Is Faith (Īmān)
An appraisal of the core concepts and practices of any specific religious ide-
ology should be focused on general premises. Given that al-Turabi questions
the principles and standards of classical and modern secular doctrines, he en-
deavors to provide particular arguments about Islam’s factuality and validity
through time and space. The remainder of this paper is divided into sections
that represent his religio-political and ideological discourse: faith and its im-
pact on human life, and then renewal and ijtihād, respectively.

Al-Turabi builds his religious discourse on a specific conception of faith.
To him, “faith in Islam should be at the core of all that a Muslim does. This is
because faith has remained constant since the first sharī‘ah revelation.”17 The
core of Islam revolves around the axiom of faith, which constitutes the bedrock
for all aspects of life: social, economic, political, psychological, as well as per-
sonal and everything else. For him, the significance of the concept of faith, as
distinguished from other secular dogmas, should be seen in the light of 

the materialistic and intellectual hegemony that trivializes transcendental re-
ligious facts and suppresses will in the faithful human soul. This results,
first, in a human being’s despair with respect to his/her life in the Hereafter
and on this earth and, secondly, the alienation of religion and the domesti-
cation or habituation by the human to various spiritual, intellectual and ma-
terialistic approaches. Third, factors of oblivion and old-age have penetrated
the true fundamentals of religion, leading to the disappearance of its meaning
and the alteration of manifestations which became an accumulation of in-
herited traditions and conceptions. Domestic innovation (bid‘ah), itself dom-
inated by domestic impressions and affected by historical circumstances
became the order of the day.18

Furthermore, the importance of faith can be seen in the Muslims’ need
for a comprehensive interpretation of existence, one that brings closer the na-
ture of the great truths of divinity, monotheism (tawḥīd), the cosmos, life, and
humanity. Faith channels to the human being the knowledge of one’s position

84 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



and purpose in the universe so that he/she may aquire knowledge of his/her
proper role as God’s vicegerent on Earth. Such knowledge helps one to define
one’s appropriate socio-economic and political approach to life. Consequently,
the political system that governs human life becomes, as regards its sources,
validity, and correctness, dependent upon the comprehensive interpretation of
faith, as well as its values and impact upon human life, in this world and the
Hereafter.

His argument is grounded in the specific verses: “Whosoever follows My
guidance, will not lose his way, nor fall into misery. But whosoever turns away
from My Message, verily for him is life narrowed down and We shall raise
him up blind in the day of Judgement” (Q. 20:123-24 and Q. 2:38-39) and
“faith in God should be reflected in practical attitudes and in behaviour with
the whole of creation.”19 Here, al-Turabi defines faith in terms of concepts
and principles as well as, and more significantly, in terms of behavior and cul-
ture. He thus concludes that the religion of a group, a people, and a nation is
not merely a result of their belief, but rather a manifestation of their behavior
and culture. Thus,

when an individual’s faith is perfect and his devotion to God is sincere, the
spirit of religion will penetrate his whole life and organize all his actions
themselves, made possible by divinely predestined circumstances. Faith will,
first, incarnate itself into the political field as God’s rulership (ḥākimīyyah),
as a rejection of the rule of tyranny and aberration, as God-fearing (taqwā)
with respect to the handling of authority and allegiance and as strife (jihād)
in the path of God against the forces of evil. Second, faith will manifest itself
in economic forms as a confession of God’s ownership and man’s inheri-
tance of wealth, as directing life towards the objective of devotion and re-
straining one from self-indulgence, and as the establishment of economic
relations upon the basis of God-fearing and obedience. Third, faith will also
have itself manifested in science as a unification of both narrated and rational
sciences for the sake of more knowledge about God, and for using such
knowledge in the extension of worship and devotion to God. Faith is thus
present in all the walks of human life.20

One basic characteristic of faith is that it offers humanity a comprehensive
and complete interpretation of existence, creation, humanity’s relations with
and the worship of God, the objective of this existence: “And I (Allah) created
not the jinns and humans except they should worship Me (alone)” (Q. 51:56).
However, people do not realize the objective of existence by worship alone,
but also by achieving unity in all aspects of life. Al-Turabi rejects the separa-
tion of politics from religion and the division of life’s spheres into economics,

Hassan and Buaben: Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious Discourse 85



society, politics, or any other aspect. This rejection follows from his belief in
the existence of a strong relation between the nature of a social order and the
nature of the metaphysical or doctrinal concept of faith. 

More importantly, since the social order itself is derived from the meta-
physical concept, any compartmentalization of human life into “public” and
“private” prevents a precise understanding of humanity and the universe. What
indicates Islam’s superiority in particular, according to al-Turabi, is its totality,
its unification of theory and practice or faith and action, and the inevitability
of death, reward and punishment in the Hereafter. His argument is based on
“Whoever works righteousness, man or women, has faith, verily to him We
will give a life that is good and pure, and We will bestow on such their reward
according to the best of their actions” (Q. 16:96) and “By the time. Verily,
man is in loss, except those who believe (in Islamic montheism) and do right-
eous good deeds, and recommend one another to the truth, and recommend
one another to patience” (Q. 103:1-3).

Thus, “faith, if sincere, means right conduct. When these confirm each
other, Allah’s grace transforms our lives. Instead of being troubled and wor-
ried, we have peace and contentment, instead of being assailed at every turn
by false alarms and the assaults of evil, we enjoy calm and attain purity. The
transformation is visible in this life itself, but the reward in terms of the Here-
after will be far beyond our deserts.”21 Al-Turabi completes his argument by
declaring God’s punishment of those who reject faith and hypocrites: “Allah
has promised the hypocrites, men and women and the rejecters of faith, the
Fire of Hell: therein shall they dwell. Sufficient it is for them: for them is the
curse of Allah and an enduring punishment” (Q. 9:68).

Thus Islam is distinctive in that it entails action: the Muslim aspiration
for the establishment of a true Muslim society. Ultimately, it seems that the
value and effects of faith for al-Turabi are social, economic, and political. This
conclusion can be demonstrated by the example he gives: The first community
of Muslims was created by having faith in God as One. The effects of faith
were not only transcendental but also resulted in the creation of an Islamic
ummah that managed 

to transform sectarianism, tribal fanaticism and political fragmentation into
unity and a comprehensive central government and poverty into hoarded
wealth and an extensive regional base that helped to establish a sublime eco-
nomic renaissance. It also transformed subjugation into superiority, freedom
and political leadership whose stage was the great world, and cultural para-
sitism into a sublime civilization that enriched the world for long centuries,
and changed illiteracy into scientific knowledge that illuminated Europe’s

86 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



Dark Ages. We should attribute this entire rapid and great renaissance to the
factors of faith which aroused the first Islamic community and mobilized
its energies into an immense campaign in which they interacted with their
existing conditions only to construct that superior social, political, economic,
civilizational and scientific glory.22

Accordingly, faith is not an inactive or moribund concept that lives in the
realm of human consciousness, satisfied with existing either theoretically or
in the spiritual realm. It is, above all, a dynamic (although unarticulated) de-
sign to construct a reality in which faith and action (‘amal) are preserved.
Faith can thus be comprehended first, as a motivating force in an individual’s
life to create a faithful group or a “personal impulse” and, second, as a design
for constructing an Islamic alternative in which faith necessitates its own ful-
filment in an Islamic state. 

In other words, faith’s value and impact can be appreciated and actualized
only in an Islamic state, the existence of which becomes essential for those
individuals and groups trying to establish Islamic values and objectives. With-
out such a state Islam cannot survive in its perfect political form, which re-
quires political activism and the motivation to achieve its spiritual and
materialistic functions, among them prayer, alms-giving, fasting, and pilgrim-
age. One of Islam’s most significant aspects is its engagement of the human
mind, soul, conscience, and body. 

After furnishing the basic foundations and principles of life, it frees the
mind to pursue both the religious and natural sciences, undertake the renewal
of religious thought along with rational and independent reasoning, and in-
quire into society and the universe. Furthermore, al-Turabi views Islam’s ul-
timate function as realizing monotheism, which entails worshipping God as
One God and eradicating polytheism (shirk). This eradication is essential in
the fundamental quest for humanity’s liberation (taḥrīr), the renewal of reli-
gious though, Muslim freedom and unity, consultation, democracy, the eman-
cipation of women from the shackles of obscurant traditionalism, and the
adoption and utilization of arts to propagate the Islamic message worldwide. 

Tajdīd and Ijtihād
In his written and oral discourse, al-Turabi does not present himself as an ar-
dent advocate of Islam’s revival or as a fundamentalist in the sense of a literal
reading of the Qur’an and Sunnah. On the contrary, he primarily depicts him-
self as an exponent of Islamic renewal and independent reasoning. He does
not conceal his dissatisfaction with the classical currents of Islamic jurispru-

Hassan and Buaben: Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious Discourse 87



dence and the prevailing methodological statements and intellectual mecha-
nisms. For him, “this does not mean that modern and contemporary Islamic
thinkers have offered nothing in the context of social, political and economic
transformations in our present life. On the contrary, they succeeded in defend-
ing Islam, the refutation of all fabricated allegations against it and the restora-
tion of trust in it as a comprehensive method of life that depicts its directions
and organizes its branches.”23 The contemporary Islamic movement is required
to call for the renewal of Islamic culture and the “opening” of the gates of
ijtihād to create harmony in Muslim life as well as to reconcile with religious
orientations and requirements.

The pursuit of an Islamic civilizational project according to a compre-
hensive fundamentalist vision of renewal and ijtihād is also required. Al-
Turabi justifies this by maintaining that 

the actual practice of ijtihād is mainly restricted to the re-reading of classical
scholars’ discourse, the reproduction of their fatwas, and the balancing of
their ijtihādāt (reasoning) to reach reconciliation between Islam’s texts and
rules and the prevailing intellectual systems. Furthermore, the handling of
the fundamentalist methodology is still governed by hesitant individualistic
initiatives and limited sectional orientations. As a result, Islamic thought
did not accomplish what can be called a fundamentalist methodological
renaissance.24

Third, it must generate an awareness of what directs the Muslim intellect
and formulates its production while thinking about how to handle contempo-
rary socioeconomic and political issues and their temporal and spatial adap-
tation. Al-Turabi writes that many factors can help generate this awareness,
such as “the accumulation of Islamic writings and publications, the growth of
consciousness of the challenges confronting the Islamic movement, the in-
crease in the Muslims’ scientific and empirical knowledge through their in-
teraction with the renewing cultural and civilizational conditions at both the
domestic and international levels.”25

Al-Turabi’s Qaḍāya al-Tajdīd: Naḥwa Manhaj Uṣūlī (Issues of Renewal:
Towards a Fundamentalist Methodology)’ and Tajdīd al-Fikr al-Islāmī (Re-
newal of Islamic Thought) are but one step toward a fundamentalist renewal
of Islamic thought, the adoption of ijtihād, and keeping its gates open. Tawḥīd,
as a comprehensive vision of existence and life, represents the cornerstone of
his socioeconomic and political discourse. By basing his main Islamic call
upon it, he aspires to review the Islamic fundamentalist legacy, transcend the
jurisprudential schools’ internal problems of legal and intellectual rigidity and

88 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



stagnation, and to formulate a comprehensive theory of religiosity. He defines
this latter term as a firm process of connection through which one strives to
unify one’s thoughts and actions and Islam’s absolute religious ideals. In other
words, religiosity is what an individual believer acquires by adapting his/her
life according to Islam’s imperatives and orientations. It takes hold of one’s
life and thus becomes the substance of its dimensions and location. 

Since religion, as a divine discourse to humanity, is connected with tem-
poral and spatial frameworks, it must experience some sort of cosmic condi-
tioning or a circle of life and death. Here al-Turabi uses the analogy between
living organisms (e.g., plants and animals) and religion. As a living organism
experiences the stages of birth, youth, old age, and death, so does religion pass
through the phases of renaissance, decay, rigidity, inaction, degeneration, and
demise. But religion, being a relationship with the Eternal, Absolute, and Con-
stant (God), is based on immutable and infallible fundamentals. Consequently,
“it is based on returning this transforming circumstantial affair to the axiom
of permanent and constant truth (ḥaqq) and temporal action to the infinite ob-
jective.”26 Within this relationship between the eternal and the evolutionary,
or the absolute and the relative, a concept of religious history is established
either through prophets and successive messengers prior to Prophet Muham-
mad or through consecutive generations of the ummah. 

According to Muhammad Mahmoud, al-Turabi 

draws the traditional sharp distinction between the Qur’an and the Prophetic
traditions (Sunnah) on the one hand (as two permanent, reliable sources
that are not subject to the mutability of history and that constitute the essence
of the divine plan for the guidance of man) and (fiqh), on the other hand,
which is a human response to the problems arising within a specific histor-
ical context.27

Consequently, the adaptation of expressive religious configurations in the
face of historical sociopolitical and materialistic development is imperative
to religion’s continuity and unity through time and space. Intellectual needs,
contemporary challenges, intensified materialistic realities, the complexity
and overlapping of human relations and complications, and the diversity of
sociopolitical problems put more pressure on those who are shouldering the
process of religious renewal and ijtihād to renew their intellectual methods,
develop their expressive styles and their intellectual methods. Al-Turabi, as
Muhammad Mahmoud confirms,

recognizes that the classical science of uṣūl al-fiqh (the foundations of ju-
risprudence) was largely influenced by Greek formal logic and was such a

Hassan and Buaben: Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious Discourse 89



highly formalized and abstract activity that it soon divorced itself from its
social environment, thus failing to produce a living and adaptable fiqh. He
also recognizes that Muslims are nowadays under the cultural hegemony of
modern Western culture, with what he describes as its “logical positivist, rel-
ativist and empirical methodologies,” a circumstance that is bound to affect
them.28

Furthermore, al-Turabi confirms that the independent judgments of the
classical Muslim ulema and jurists cannot effectively deal with the contem-
porary world’s challenges and afflictions because they practiced ijtihād in a
specific sociocultural environment and tried to solve its problems within the
context of a specific temporal and spatial reality. Thus their methods and
ijtihād were largely defined and constrained by that reality and that environ-
ment. For him, 

since religiosity or religiousness, as both theory and practice, is a renovating
human kasb (acquired knowledge), a fundamentalist jurist (faqīh) should
strive for the renewal of his scientific methods and tools, development of
his artistic and technical styles and approaches, deepening of his concepts
of ijtihād parallel to the growth of his practical experience and expansion of
his scientific culture.29

His criticism of classical Islamic jurisprudence is based on his preference
for an all-embracing legal scope and his call for a unifying fundamentalist
methodology that absorbs the divine textual narrative (written discourse) and
rationale, feeds upon the methods of natural and social sciences, and utilizes
them to generate a new religious/Islamic jurisprudence that can be adapted to
public life. His criticism and call obliges researchers to further investigate the
impulses that underlie his perspective.

Al-Turabi has summarized his motives as

first, Muslims’ awareness of their conditions as compared with those of the
world and their present reality as related to their glorious past and religious
ideals. Second, Muslims’ dislike and rejection of their present backward
conditions and the desire to improve them. Third, the shock of western civ-
ilization and hegemony, introduced to them through imperialistic raids and
efficient means of communication, exposing their political, economic and
cultural weakness. Finally, the discovery by Muslims of their glorious past
through historical studies and the revival of that legacy, making them fright-
ened by their present weakness, decay and retreat. By recalling their former
superiority and dignity, Muslims are forced to meditate over their present
materialistic, spiritual and cultural reality, to compare it with their religious
ideal and, hence, to aspire for renaissance and glory.30

90 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



In addition, long periods of what al-Turabi calls “religious oblivion and
negligence” have transformed Islam into a mere heritage and made it irrelevant,
debilitated its unifying belief, and created a dogmatic vacuum that induced
Muslims to adopt western materialistic secular philosophies and doctrines that
reject and trivialize religion. Consequently, a conflict appeared between Islam
as a religion of monotheism and polytheism (shirk), which separates the mun-
dane from the divine, concentrates largely on the materialistic aspects of the
cosmos, and indulges in the love of earthy vanities. Islam confronts all three
varieties of polytheism: ritualistic, political and economic.

The influence of the Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb, the “spiritual father
and ideologue” of that country’s radical Islamic groups, is apparent in al-
Turabi’s tendency to adopt a dualistic vision of the world and humanity. In
this respect, he depicts global ideological conflicts as between “an Islam that
requires allegiance to God and applies its comprehensive Shari‘ah and God-
fearing concepts and an ignorance (jāhilīyah) that dominates through authority,
makes sexual lust an adornment, and reigns through vehement racial big-
otry.”31 He also anathematizes existing Muslim governments and demands
acceptance of the Shari‘ah as a precondition for their political legitimacy and
authority. In other words, since the present Muslim governments are ignorant
(jāhilī) and “entitled” to govern either through inheritance or force, they cannot
require obedience from Muslims. He also charges them of being illegitimate
due to their irreligiosity.32 Al-Turabi insists not only on subjecting existing
Muslim governments to enforce Islamic law, but also on basing their legiti-
macy on adherence to this law. Although legitimacy is dependent upon the
people’s choice, its continuation hinges upon following and applying Islam’s
laws of Islam, from which the people’s duty to obey the ruler stems.

Al-Turabi’s acceptance of the Shari ‘ah, the Qur’an, and the Sunnah as
the Islamic state’s underpinnings is thus an attempt to distinguish between ju-
risprudence as the human understanding of the Shari‘ah and the Shari‘ah as
God’s eternal and unchangeable law, because jurisprudence always under-
mines any “irreligious/un-Islamic” political authority. It is, therefore, a method-
ological device that allows him to discount the teachings of classical scholars
and jurists who resisted change and those of their contemporary counterparts
whom he considers subordinate to whoever is in power. Nonetheless, al-Turabi
refuses to make any changes in Islamic jurisprudence that deal with matters
of worship and rituals on the grounds that humanity’s relation to its Creator is
immutable. That part of Islamic jurisprudence that deals with social organi-
zation and development, however, should not depend on a simplistic under-
standing of Islamic traditions because people’s material and social needs are

Hassan and Buaben: Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious Discourse 91



always in flux. His acknowledgment of the need for sociopolitical develop-
ment clearly reveals his views on establishing a new Muslim society unen-
cumbered by the past. This is just one of his revolutionary teachings that sets
him apart from both classical and modern authority and teachings, as well as
the present governments and conditions.

Another significant Qutbian feature is al-Turabi’s commitment to the elit-
ist “vanguard” formula, whereby an Islamic vanguard organizes itself with
the expressed intention of Islamizing the rest of society (and, of course, ulti-
mately the rest of humanity). All means are open to this vanguard, including
jihad, to achieve a comprehensive Islamic reformation and create an alterna-
tive Islamic state based on the principles of the Shari‘ah, consultation, and a
new political jurisprudence.

Conclusion
The contemporary Islamist religious discourse, including that of al-Turabi, rep-
resents the culmination of the accumulated Qur’an and Sunnah dating back to
the Prophet. Thus its substance and legitimation are consciously based on the
rediscovery and reinterpretation of the Qur’anic texts, Prophetic traditions, and
historical episodes. Contemporary Islamic movements, groups, networks, and
even parties, including al-Turabi’s Popular Congress Party, seek to justify their
existence and mission by using divine and prophetic texts, as well as divinely
ordained obligations and historical precedents, as referential frameworks. Con-
sequently, the burden of society lies heavily on the Islamist ideologues, as they
strive to reconstruct the past in the present crisis setting, in order to shape the
future. Furthermore, these ideologues bring their intellectual roots to the mili-
tant orientations in both classical and modern Islamic thought and movements.
These orientations represent significant examples for present-day radical Is-
lamists, both due to their radical religio-ideological discourses and the violent
revolutionary methods they use to impose a their much-desired alternative: an
Islamic state.

In this respect, al-Turabi’s thought and political career helped create a vi-
able Islamist discourse on faith, renewal, and ijtihād. This discourse proved to
be a powerful competitor not only to all sorts of secular discourses (e.g., com-
munism and liberalism) in modern Sudan and the Muslim world, but also to
the traditional religious discourses as well. Furthermore, his contribution to the
debate on Islam’s revival, as well as the renewal of its thought and encourage-
ment of rational and independent reasoning, should be understood as that of
the religiously minded and motivated middle-class elites. This class is laboring

92 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1



under the impact of westernization; western-dominated globalization; and a
deep-seated socioeconomic, political, and cultural crises at home. In other
words, this particular discourse is related to the crisis-ridden cultural system
from which it has evolved and the diverse political structures in which it has
occurred. Al-Turabi, along with most contemporary Muslim scholars, consid-
ers Islam as a comprehensive divine system that provides an alternative to
present-day jāhilī Muslim societies and a method of restructuring or remaking
the whole world. By resorting to the divine and prophetic, such Islamist ideo-
logues as al-Turabi also seek to rediscover and reinterpret the Qur’an and Sun-
nah and forge an Islamic alternative in the light of a Muslim reality bedevilled
by disturbing social, economic, political, and ideational crises.

Finally, al-Turabi inspired his disciples with convictions based on the
Qur’an and Sunnah and gave them their characteristics as well as their pro-
gram of action. His magnetic personality has attracted an ever-swelling
stream of adherents of various socioeconomic and political backgrounds –
and it still does. Al-Turabi will personally direct his Islamic movement’s pro-
grams and policies and struggle to keep the reins of power in his hands until
he dies. His Islamist discourse, in which religion has become intricately in-
terwoven with politics, has also demonstrated the Islamists’ pragmatism, lust
for political power, and ultimate aspiration: the establishment of an Islamic
utopia or state.

Endnotes

1. Emmanuel Sivan and Menchaen Friedman, eds., Religious Radicalism and Pol-
itics in the Middle East (Albany: State University of New York, 1990), 1.

2. For more on the detention of al-Turabi’s grandfather, see Judith Miller, “Global
Islamic Awakening or Sudanese Nightmare?” in Spokesmen for the Despised,
ed. R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 184. 

3. Ibid., 185.
4. Ibid.
5. Abdelwahab El-Affendi, Turabi’s Revolution: Islam and Power in the Sudan

(London: Grey Seal Books, 1991), 45-49.
6. Ibid., 57.
7. Ibid., 58.
8. Miller, Spokesmen, 189.
9. Peter Nyot Kok, “Kurzbiographien,” Orient 33 (1992): 186.
10. Warburg R. Gabriel, “Turabi of the Sudan: Soft-Spoken Revolutionary,” Middle

Eastern Lectures 1 (1995): 90.
11. Cited in Mansour Khalid, The Government They Deserve: The Role of the Elite

in Sudan’s Political Development (London: Kegan Paul, 1995), 225. Also see

Hassan and Buaben: Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious Discourse 93



Nesrine Malik, “Chinua Achebe’s Anti-Colonial Novels Are Still Relevant
Today,” The Guardian, Sunday, 24 March 2013.

12. Mansour Khalid, The Revolution of Dis-May (London: Kegan Paul, 1985), 6. 
13. Ibid., 58.
14. G. Norman Anderson, Sudan in Crisis: The Failure of Democracy (Gainesville:

Florida University Press, 1999), 38-39.
15. See Peter Woodward, “Sudan after Nimeiri,” Third World Quarterly 7, no. 4

(October 1985): 970.
16. El Wathiq Kameir and Ibrahim Kursany, Corruption as the Fifth Factor of Pro-

duction in the Sudan (Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies,
1985), 13.

17. Hassan al-Turabi, Al-Īmān: Athāru fī Ḥayāt al-Insān (Faith: Its Impact on
Human Life), 2d ed. (Khartoum: Manshurat al-‘Asr al-Hadith, 1984), 6. Trans-
lations are ours. 

18. Ibid., 6.
19. Ibid., 10.
20. Ibid.
21. The Holy Quran, English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary (Mad-

inah: King Fahad Holy Quran Printing Complex, 1410 AH), 762-63.
22. Al-Turabi, Al-Īmān, 11.
23. Hassan al-Turabi, Qaḍāyā al-Tajdīd: Naḥwa Manhaj Uṣūlī (Issues of Renewal:

Towards a Fundamentalist Methodology) (Khartoum: Institute of Research and
Social Studies, 1990), 7. Translations are ours. 

24. Ibid., 8.
25. Ibid., 9.
26. Ibid., 12.
27. Muhammad Mahmoud, “The Discourse of the Ikhwan (Muslim Brothers) of

Sudan and Secularism,” in Questioning the Secular State, ed. David Westlund
(London: Hurst and Company, 1995), 175-76.

28. Ibid., 174.
29. Al-Turabi, Qaḍāyā, 18.
30. Ibid., 29-30.
31. Ibid., 31.
32. Hassan Al-Turabi, Tajdīd al-Fikr al-Islāmī (The Renewal of Islamic Thought)

(Khartoum: Iman Press, 1980), 9. Translations are ours. 

94 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 32:1