'Defining the community': the National Islamic Front, its opponents and the sharia issue

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Periodical article

Title:	'Defining the community': the National Islamic Front, its opponents and the sharia issue
Author:	O'Fahey, Rex Sean
Year:	1997
Periodical:	Islam et sociétés au Sud du Sahara
Issue:	11
Pages:	55-65
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Sudan
Subjects:	human rights Islamic law revival & reform law politics Shari'a
Abstract:	The confrontation between human rights issues and the sharia is particularly stark in the Sudan. Western claims for the universal applicability of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights appear irreconcilable with the assertion of the primacy of God's law by the Islamist regime of the National Islamic Front (NIF). The present paper looks at four aspects of the historical and legal issues as perceived and expressed by various sides in the Sudan case, both Sudanese and non-Sudanese, viz. the nature of the sharia, the growth of Islamism or political Islam in the Sudan, the nature of legitimacy as reflected in the ongoing debate in the Sudan, unleashed by the NIF's claims of exclusivist authority, and, finally, the confrontation between the Sudan government and the United Nations in 1994 over the sharia issue and the alleged incompatibility between the 1991 Criminal Act and various international legal conventions that the Sudan is signatory to. Notes, ref.