Islamization in Sudan: a critical assessment

Abstract

SUDAN has offered one of the more provocative cases of state-supported Islamization in recent years because of the government's swiftness and readiness to apply the hudud punishments after the sharia was decreed to be the national law in September 1983. This Islamization, using the coercive apparatus of the state, must be distinguished from the sociocultural process of conversion to Islam that has been a major part of Sudanese history for the past five centuries. A number of scholars have described the political context in which Islamization took place,' while others have examined the legal effect of this dramatic and far-reaching development.2 Only a few works have been devoted specifically to southern Sudanese views of Islamization,3 despite their being a critical dimension to a comprehensive understanding of Sudan. The strongly politicized nature of the north-south divide has made dialogue on the subject infrequent and emotionally charged. This article seeks to examine the political Islamization trend in its more