Fresh calls for Shari’ah laws in Sudan amid increased sectarian tension
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February 2, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The official clerical authority in Sudan
has called on the body tasked with drafting the country’s constitution
to ensure full inclusion of Islamic Shari’ah law.
On 13 July 2011, Sudan’s President Omer Al-Bashir formed a taskforce
comprising legal and religious experts to draft a permanent
constitution for the country after its current interim constitution,
which was installed in 2005 as per the Comprehensive Peace Agreement
(CPA) with South Sudan, became effectively obsolete following the
expiry of that deal’s mandate in July last year.
The CPA paved the way for the secession of the mainly Christian South
Sudan from the Muslim-ruled north, rendering the latter relatively
homogeneous in terms of religion and culture.
Al-Bashir declared in several occasion that the new constitution will
recognize Arabic as the official language and Islam as the only source
of lawmaking. Sudan’s [Muslim] Scholars Association (SSA), a body of
state-controlled Imams and clerics, on Thursday issued a statement
drawing the attention of the constitution committee to the necessity
of fully implementing Shari’ah law.
The statement stressed that the reason for this is that the Sudanese
people would never accept to be ruled by any set of laws other than
that of Shari’ah laws.
In a related issue, the SSA urged leaders of rival religious sects to
observe peaceful dialogue following the eruption this week of violent
confrontation between supporters of the Ansar Al-Suna group and those
of Sufi cults.
The clashes, which occurred during celebrations of Prophet Muhammad’s
birthday in Sudan’s twin capital city of Omdurman, resulted in the
injury of more than a dozen people.
Tension between Sufi and Salafist groups, whose views and
interpretation of Islam vary in many ways, increased in the recent
past.
In late 2011, a number of Sufi shrine sites in Al-Ailafon suburb, 35
km east of Khartoum, were destroyed and burned by suspected members of
Ansar al-Suna.
Meanwhile, a senior member of the Islamist opposition Popular Congress
Party (PCP) has accused the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) of
using Salafist groups to settle accounts with rivals and cover up its
political and economic failings.
While addressing a seminar held by opposition parties in Khartoum on
Thursday, the PCP member Abu Bakr Abdul Raziq further described the
SSA as the “scholars of the rulers” and accused the NCP of using them
to negate the legitimacy of other Islamist parties.
Similarly, the lawyer and member of the opposition alliance Wagdi
Salih demanded that the government launches investigations into the
escalating phenomenon of issuing Fataws of apostasy against
intellectual and religious figures.
Some Salafist groups recently issued Fataws pronouncing as infidel the
leader of the National Umma Party Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi against the
background of his opinions on the status of women in Islam.
Wagdi Salih further accused the government of allowing Salafist group
to run rampant and occupy public squares.
(ST)
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