Religion in Sudan

[3][4][5] Nevertheless, the indigenous Nubian Coptic Christians continued to compose a substantial portion of the regions' population up until the nineteenth century, when almost all of them were forcibly converted to Islam under the Mahdist State.

Some Muslims opposed aspects of Sunni orthodoxy, and rites having a non-Islamic origin were widespread, being accepted as if they were integral to Islam, or sometimes being recognized as separate.

Many males in the cities and larger towns manage to pray five times a day: at dawn, noon, mid afternoon, sundown, and evening.

Nevertheless, it takes time (or money if travel is by air), and the ordinary Sudanese Muslim has generally found it difficult to accomplish, rarely undertaking it before middle age.

In the north, however, the sharia was expected to govern what is usually called family and personal law, i.e., matters such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance.

In September 1983, Nimeiri imposed the sharia throughout the land, eliminating the civil and penal codes by which the country had been governed in the twentieth century.

[citation needed] In July 2020, a number of these laws were repealed,[10] including the one that had provided for the death sentence for apostasy,[11] the renouncement of Islam by a Muslim.

His blessing may be asked at births, marriages, deaths, and other important occasions, and he may participate in wholly non-Islamic harvest rites in some remote places.

His religious authority is based on his putative knowledge of the Qur'an, the sharia, and techniques for dealing with occult threats to health and well-being.

Many others, however, see the saint not merely as an intercessor with and an agent of God, but also as a nearly autonomous source of blessing and power, thereby approaching "popular" as opposed to orthodox Islam.

These orders emerged in the Middle East in the twelfth century in connection with the development of Sufism, a reaction based in mysticism to the strongly legalistic orientation of mainstream Islam.

The exercises (or dhikr) include reciting prayers and passages of the Qur'an and repeating the names, or attributes, of God while performing physical movements according to the formula established by the founder of the particular order.

The oldest and most widespread of the turuq is the Qadiriyah founded by Abdul Qadir Jilani in Baghdad in the twelfth century and introduced into Sudan in the sixteenth.

Later on, a class of Tijani merchants arose as markets grew in towns and trade expanded, making them less concerned with providing religious leadership.

Of greater importance to Sudan was the tariqa established by the followers of Sayyid Ahmad ibn Idris, known as Al Fasi, who died in 1837.

Although he lived in Arabia and never visited Sudan, his students spread into the Nile Valley establishing indigenous Sudanese orders which include the Majdhubiyah, the Idrisiyah, the Ismailiyah, and the Khatmiyyah.

Established in the early nineteenth century by Muhammad Uthman al Mirghani, it became the best organized and most politically oriented and powerful of the turuq in eastern Sudan (see Turkiyah).

The Khatmiyyah had its center in the southern section of Ash Sharqi State and its greatest following in eastern Sudan and in portions of the riverine area.

The Mirghani family were able to turn the Khatmiyyah into a political power base, despite its broad geographical distribution, because of the tight control they exercised over their followers.

This power did not equal, however, that of the Mirghanis' principal rival, the Ansar, or followers of the Mahdi, whose present-day leader was Sadiq al-Mahdi, the great-grandson of Muhammad Ahmad, who drove the Egyptian administration from Sudan in 1885.

In the century since the Mahdist uprising, the neo-Mahdist movement, and the Ansar, supporters of Mahdism from the west, have persisted as a political force in Sudan.

The ambitions and varying political perspectives of different members of the family have led to internal conflicts, and it appeared that Sadiq al-Mahdi, the putative leader of the Ansar since the early 1970s, did not enjoy the unanimous support of all Mahdists.

In the government that was formed in June 1989, following a bloodless coup d'état, the Brotherhood exerted influence through its political wing, the National Islamic Front (NIF) party, which included several cabinet members among its adherents.

The indigenous Coptic Christians continued to compose a substantial portion of the regions' population up until the nineteenth century, when most were converted to Islam under the Mahdist state (1881-1898).

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria's influence is still marginally present in Sudan, with several hundred thousand remaining adherents.

Believing and acting in a religious mode is part of daily life and is linked to the social, political, and economic actions and relationships of the group.

In northern Sudan among Muslim peoples, the faqih may spend more of his time as the diviner, dispenser of amulets, healer, and exorcist than as Qur'anic teacher, imam of a mosque, or mystic.

[17][18] Prior to July 2020, when Sudan's law against apostasy was repealed,[10] atheists faced the death penalty if they were born to a Muslim father, or had accepted Islam at some point and then renounced it.