The academic literature on Taha and the Jumhuriyyun focuses primarily on their writings and ideas, and only to a lesser extent on the movement itself. Nonetheless, Taha’s ideas remain influential, and have entered into the discourse of other progressive Muslim thinkers. The central importance of Taha as an enduring inspiration and living model for his followers explains the decline of the reform movement after the execution of the “master” ( ustadh), as he was called by his supporters. The bitter irony: The execution was carried out on the basis of the very " shari'a laws" introduced by Numayri in September 1983, against which Taha and his small movement, the "Republican Brothers" ( al-ikhwan al-jumhuriyyun), had spoken out emphatically.Īlthough Taha’s execution was ultimately politically motivated, it reflected a fundamental conflict. For decades, Taha and his movement had advocated an unorthodox understanding of Islam based on a radical re-interpretation of the Qur'an, which had brought them into conflict with representatives of Wahhabi and Salafi Islam in particular. The fate of sufist-inspired Sudanese Muslim intellectual Mahmud Muhammad Taha briefly hit the headlines in the international press when then dictator Ja’far Numayri had him executed for alleged apostasy in January 1985.
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