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In this article discusses Sudanese politician, theologian and thinker Mahmoud
Muhammed Taha’s (1909/11–1985) views freedom, justice and related issues.
Mahmoud Muhammed Taha was born Sudan. In the 1930s, as an engineering
student in Khartoum. In 1945 he co-founded and led the Republican Party a major
emancipatory movement, advocating full independence for Sudan as a secular republic.
The nature of the party's ideology went through a radical change after Taha
emerged from a mystical retreat in 1951. In the light of this ideology, the party advocated
a "neo-Islamist" position committed to a reconciliation of Islam and modernity.
Like many commentators, Taha discerns a basic division between the tenets
revealed during the Prophet's tenure as a preacher in Mecca (610–622) and
those revealed after his flight to Medina (622–633). The first set of statements and
guidelines is generally pluralist, tolerant, and pacifist. But the later parts in Medina
change character, and advocate violence against nonbelievers. Both traditional Islamic
law and much of Islamic thinking is based on this second half. Taha felt that
the Medina portions, while valid, were intended to be addressed to the situation at
the time, and that the more important parts for modern society were verses of the
Koran in Mecca.