National Islamic Front

For the Afghan Pashtun political party led by Pir Sayyed Ahmad Gillani, see National Islamic Front of Afghanistan.
National Islamic Front
الجبهة الإسلامية القومية
AbbreviationNIF
Formation1960s
TypePolitical organisation
PurposeCreation and maintenance of Sudan as Islamic state
LeaderHassan al-Turabi
AffiliationsNational Congress (Political Wing)
Muslim Brotherhood

The National Islamic Front (NIF; Arabic: الجبهة الإسلامية القومية; transliterated: al-Jabhah al-Islamiyah al-Qawmiyah) was an Islamist political organization founded in 1976[1] and led by Dr. Hassan al-Turabi that influenced the Sudanese government starting in 1979, and dominated it from 1989 to the late 1990s. It was one of only two Islamic revival movements to secure political power in the 20th century (the other being the followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the Islamic Republic of Iran).[2]

The NIF emerged from Muslim student groups that first began organizing in the universities during the 1940s, and its main support base has remained the college educated.[2] It supported the maintenance of an Islamic state run on Sharia and rejected the concept of a secular state. It took a "top down" or "Islamisation from above" approach of "infiltrating Sudan's state apparatus, army, and financial system".[3] It demonstrated itself to be both politically adept and ruthless in its use of violence, in particular in the internal conflicts of the Second Sudanese Civil War and the War in Darfur, as well in the provisioning of proxy forces such as the Lord's Resistance Army, the West Nile Bank Front and the Uganda National Rescue Front II against Uganda.

In the late 1990s, the Front changed its name to National Congress,[4][5] and the "gross human rights violations" of the regime's early years gave way to "more subtle methods of social control such as restrictions on the right to freedom of expression, opinion, religion, association, and movement."[2] In 1999, Hassan al-Turabi, leader of the NIF and his supporters were expelled from the ruling National Congress Party by President of Sudan Omar Hassan al-Bashir[6] and subsequently founded the rival Popular Congress Party which has remained in opposition.[7]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference eprism was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c "National Islamic Front". globalsecurity.org. Retrieved 28 April 2015.
  3. ^ Kepel, Jihad, 2002: p.177
  4. ^ "National Islamic Front". globalsecurity.org. Retrieved 28 April 2015. According to the Political Handbook of the World 2011, the NIF was renamed as the National Congress (NC) in 1996 (2011, 1356). Other sources report that in November 1998, the NIF renamed itself the National Congress (NC).
  5. ^ Reeves, Eric (17 September 2014). "Enough Forum: Watching the Bubble Burst". enough project. Retrieved 28 April 2015. Since the Government of Sudan—essentially the National Congress Party (formerly the National Islamic Front) ...
  6. ^ "National Islamic Front". globalsecurity.org. Retrieved 28 April 2015. In late 1999/early 2000 the NIF went through a power struggle after Turabi attempted to take away Bashir's power (i.e. ability to name regional governors). In December 1999, Bashir took `the Ramadan decisions`, stripping Turabi of his posts, dissolving the parliament, suspending the constitution and declaring a state of national emergency. Eventually, in May 2000, Turabi was deposed from his position as "Speaker". As a result, Turabi then created the Popular National Congress Party later that summer.
  7. ^ "Popular Congress Party (PCP)". Sudan Tribune. Retrieved 28 April 2015.