Hassan al-Turabi, Sudanese Islamic spiritual leader, Died at 84

  Religion

Hassan ‘Abd Allah al-Turabi was born in 1932 in Kassala and died March 5, 2016.

He was a religious and Islamist political leader in Sudan.

Hassan has been called “one of the most influential figures in modern Sudanese politics”, and a “longtime hard-line ideological leader”.

Notwithstanding, he may have been instrumental in institutionalizing sharia Islamic law in the northern part of the country.

However his works, he has been repeatedly imprisoned in Sudan, but these “periods of detention” have been “interspersed with periods of high political office”.

Also known as a leader of what was called the National Islamic Front (NIF) (which changed its name to National Congress in the late 1990s), a political movement that developed considerable political power in Sudan while never obtaining significant popularity among Sudanese voters.

And embraced a “top down” approach to Islamisation of placing party members in high posts in the government and security services.

Hassan al-Turabi and the NIF reached the peak of their power from 1989 following a military coup d’état, until 2001, as what observers have called “the power behind the throne”, head of the only Sunni Islamist movement to take state control of a state

Hassan al-Turabi passed away at 84 yrs old.