Mahmoud Mohammed
Taha, ( 1909 – 18 January 1985; Arabic: محمود محمد طه) also known as Ustaz Mahmoud Mohammed Taha,
was a Sudanese religious
thinker, leader, and trained engineer. He was executed for apostasy at the age of 76 by the regime of Gaafar Nimeiry.
Taha was born in Ruffaa, a town on the
eastern bank of the Blue Nile, 150 km
south of Khartoum. He was educated as a civil
engineer in a British-run university in the years before Sudan's independence.
After working briefly for Sudan Railways he started his own engineering
business. In 1945, he founded an
anti-monarchical political group, the Republican Party, and was twice
imprisoned by the British authorities.
He had revolutionary ideas about the
second message of Islam, which is the essence of the Mekka Quoraan as opposed
to Shariaa laws
which are the essence of Medina Quoraan. While the Medina Quoraan was
appropriate at its time to be the essence of Shariaa, it is now time to bring
the Mekka Quoraan to legislate. Taha opposed shariaa law as applied in Sudan as
unislamic and preached that the Sudanese constitution needed to be reformed to reconcile
"the individual's need for absolute freedom with the community's need for
total social justice."
He believed that Islam "in its
original, uncorrupted form", which is in the Mekka Qoraan, accorded women
and non-Muslims equal status. He formed a small group, known as the Republican
Brothers, to advance his cause.
On Jan 5, 1985 Taha was arrested for
distributing pamphlets calling for an end to Shari'a law in Sudan. Brought to
trial on January 7 he refused to participate. The trial lasted 2 hours with the
main evidence being confessions that the defendants were opposed to Sudan's
interpretation of Islamic law. The next day he was sentenced to death
along with 4 other followers (who later recanted and were pardoned) for
"heresy, opposing application of Islamic law, disturbing public security,
provoking opposition against the government, and reestablishing a banned
political party." The government forbade his unorthodox
views on Islam to be discussed in public because it would "create
religious turmoil" or fitnah. A special court of appeal approved the
sentence on January 15. Two days later president Nimeiry directed the execution
for January 18. Despite the smallness of his group thousands of demonstrators
protested his execution and police on horseback used bullwhips to drive back
the crowd. The body was secretly buried.
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