Islam in Sudan

Shari'a law has been installed by various military regimes, and its application to non-Muslims in the capital was a contentious issue during the negotiations, but it and the other major issues underlying the north–south conflict have been largely resolved in the agreements. Shari'a is to continue to be the basis of the national legal system as it applies in the north; national legislation applicable to the south is to be based on "popular consensus, the values, and the customs of the people." In states or regions where a majority hold different religious or customary beliefs than those on which the legal system is based, the national laws may be amended to accord better with such beliefs. Throughout the country, the application of Shari'a to non-Muslims is to be limited, and courts may not exercise their discretion to impose the harsher physical forms of Shari'a penalties on non-Muslims. Sudan has had three democratic governments since 1956, all of which abolished Shari'a law.

In September 2020, Sudan constitutionally became a secular state after Sudan's transitional government agreed to separate religion from the state, ending 30 years of Islamic rule and Islam as the official state religion in the North African nation. This new legislation also ended the former apostasy law and public flogging.

History

There had been cultural contact between Nubians and Arabs long before the rise of Islam. Islam spread to Sudan from the north, after the Islamic conquest of Egypt under the government of Amr ibn al-As. Nubia had already been Christianized, also from Egypt, hence the old Nubian church followed Coptic Christianity. The Nubian Christian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia fell to the Islamic invasions in 650, 1312 and 1504, respectively. From 1504, northern Sudan was ruled by the Muslim Funj Sultanate.

Southern Sudan, i.e. South Kordofan and what is now South Sudan was neither Christianized nor Islamized until the 19th century. This region fell under Islamic rule under Muhammad Ali, and there has been religious and ethnic conflict ever since; the Mahdiyah uprisings (1881–1899) can even be seen as the origin of political Islamism and resulted in British control during 1899–1955. Racial and religious conflicts between the Arab Muslim north and the Black African Christian South re-erupted in the First Sudanese Civil War (1955–1972), the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005), the War in Darfur (2003–2010) and the Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile (2011-2020).

See also

• Islam by country
• Christianity in Sudan