Hassan al-Turabi (Arabic: حسن الترابي, romanized: Ḥasan al-Turābī; 1 February 1932 – 5 March 2016) was a Sudanese politician and scholar.

[8] al-Turabi oversaw highly controversial policies such as the creation of the "NIF police state" and associated NIF militias that consolidated Islamist power and prevented a popular uprising, but according to Human Rights Watch committed many human rights abuses, including "summary executions, torture, ill treatment, arbitrary detentions, denial of freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion, and violations of the rules of war, particularly in the south".

[7] Turabi was a leader of opposition to the American–Saudi "coalition forces" in the Gulf War, establishing in 1990–1991 the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress (PAIC), a regional umbrella for political Islamist militants, headquartered in Khartoum.

Turabi's writings, rhetoric, sermons, and public pronouncements have often been described as progressive, theologically liberal,[14] "moderate and thoughtful",[3] but his time in power was notable for harsh human rights violations.

[3] al-Turabi's philosophy drew selectively from Sudanese, Islamic, and Western political thought to fashion an ideology for the pursuit of power.

[15] He attached fundamental importance to the concept of shura (consultation) and ibtila, his view of modernity, which he believed should lead to a more profound worship of God.

In fact, in an Islamic democracy, which Turabi maintained he was working towards, ideally there is no clerical ulama class, which prevents an elitist or theocratic government.

During an interview on al-Arabiya TV in 2006, al-Turabi describes the word hijab as not a face veil but a cover or diaphragm put in a room to separate between men and the Prophet's wives, whereas niqab is just an old Arab habit.

He declared Islamist organizations "too focused on narrow historical debates and behavioral issues of what should be forbidden, at the expense of economic and social development".

In contrast Natsios writes that when in power, one of the pieces of national legislation he pressed for was that apostasy be punished by the death penalty, a position he has since disavowed.

[15] In 1964 he became secretary-general of the Islamic Charter Front (ICF), an activist movement that served as the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, and was elected to parliament in the mid-1960s.

[15] al-Turabi held several ministerial positions in government of the democratically elected Sadiq al-Mahdi, which the NIF joined in 1988 as a coalition partner, but he was never comfortable with this arrangement.

[27] From 1989 until 2001, Turabi served as what observers have called the "intellectual architect",[28] or "the power behind the throne",[7] sometimes officially as leader of the NIF and sometimes as speaker of the parliamentary assembly.

[7] While there is a "pervasive belief" in Sudan that Turabi and the NIF actively collaborated with the coup-makers who called themselves the "Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation", in fact the RCC-NS banned all political parties following the 1989 coup and arrested Turabi, as well as the leaders of other political parties, and held him in solitary confinement for several months.

[2] Alleged human rights abuses by the NIF regime included war crimes, ethnic cleansing, a revival of slavery, torture of opponents, and an unprecedented number of refugees fleeing into Uganda, Kenya, Eritrea, Egypt, Europe and North America.

Non-Muslim women were raped, their children taken from them; paper bags filled with chili powder were placed over men's heads, and some were tied to anthills; testicles were crushed and burned by cigarettes and electric current, according to a 1994 report by Human Rights Watch/Africa.

[30] On 26 May 1992 al-Turabi was attacked at the Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport in Canada by Sudanese Karate Black belt master, Hashim Bedreddin Mohammed.

Hashim was a Sufi in exile and an opponent of the National Islamic Front Islamist regime in Sudan and had won a karate world championship in 1983.

[36] Other violent groups al-Turabi invited and allowed to operate freely included Abu Nidal Organization, (which reportedly had killed more than 900 people in 20 different countries) Hezbollah, and Carlos the Jackal, (posing as a French arms dealer at the time).

[37] (Sudanese sanctuary was not unconditional as it later allowed French intelligence to kidnap Carlos the Jackal while he was undergoing an operation on his right testicle.

At the same time Sudan worked to appease the United States and other international critics by expelling members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and encouraging bin Laden to leave.

[46] After a political falling out with President Omar al-Bashir in 1999,[47] al-Turabi was imprisoned based on allegations of conspiracy before being released in October 2003.

In 2004 he was reported to have been associated with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), an Islamist armed rebel group involved in the War in Darfur, whose leader, Khalil Ibrahim used to be one of Mr Turabi's followers.

[50] After the JEM attacked Khartoum and Omdurman[51] on 10 May 2008,[52] al-Turabi was arrested on the morning of 12 May 2008, along with other members of his Popular Congress Party (PCP).

[61] On 11 April 2009, the PCP called for the creation of a transitional government to lead Sudan to the planned 2010 election, and al-Turabi suggested that he would not stand as a candidate due to his advanced age; he emphasized the importance of leadership coming from younger generations and said that he did not have enough energy to run.

[58] al-Turabi announced on 2 January 2010 that the PCP had designated his deputy, Abdallah Deng Nhial, as its candidate for the 2010 presidential election.

Turabi's funeral was held the next day, with several thousand mourners in attendance, and he was buried at Burri Al-Lamab, a cemetery in eastern Khartoum.