| Snark aside, the second half of the article is a good discussion of takfiri history and the argument within Islam over why it's a really bad idea. |
[Asharq al-Aswat] Controversy has arisen in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum over the increasing takfiri activity taking place in the country. This has taken place against the backdrop of the Sudanese Assembly of Ulemas -- a hard-line religious institute -- takfiring [branding as apostate] the opposition Sudanese Communist Party [SCP] and describing them as a "cancer" on Sudanese society.
| I think in this particular case the label of apostate might possibly be utterly appropriate, even if I lack complete understanding of the subtle arguments from both sides. |
The SCP strongly rejected accusations that it was an "infidel and godless" party
| Clearly not Marxist communists, then. Perhaps liberalhawk can name the flavour of Communism on display here -- I'm still not clear on the difference between Leninism and Trotskyism, although I think I grasp why poor Mr. Trotsky needed an ice pick in his skull. |
and in turn branded the fatwa issued against it as being an example of "religious hysteria." For its part, the government has kept a tactful silence on the ongoing conflict between both sides.
| "Red on Red is good for the rest of us!" (Green actually, in the case of the takfiris, but that would be confusing on the first read.) |
This [conflict] returned the issue of takfir to Khartoum, along with all the bloody conflict and violence that is associated with it. The initial spark in the conflict between the Communist Party and the Assembly of Ulemas took place whilst the SCP was celebrating the opening of its political office in the "Al-Jurif Gharb" district in eastern Khartoum. Elements from both sides fought with each other, although details are contradictory. The Sudanese Assembly of Ulemas said that its members went to the site of the celebrations in order to hand out a statement regarding the SCP's activities, while the Communist party claims that what happened was equivalent to a break-in by the members of the Assembly of Ulemas, and that one of them was brandishing a knife.
The Sudanese Assembly of Ulemas which includes a number of well-known Sudanese religious figures, said that the takfir of the Communist Party was not a new thing, and that a similar fatwa was previously issued by the Al-Azhar University in the 1970s. Sudanese Assembly of Ulemas spokesman Dr. Alaa al-Din al-Zaki informed Asharq Al-Awsat that the SCP had crawled out of its hole and started to spread through Sudanese society like a cancer.
| It seems there are those in Sudan who are tired of the religiousity. Are they counted among the six million who are said to have left Islam recently, I wonder... |
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