Political Islam and the Arts The Sudanese Experience

Abstract

The place and definition of art as a human practice have proved to be a thorny problem - in theory and in practice - for Muslim thinkers, old and new, moderates and fanatics alike. The views of both parties are well known, but two features of the problem are of special concern to this essay: the relationship between Islamic teachings and the actual human involvement with the arts as an integral cultural activity; and the practical political move taken by the Islamists to tackle this problem. Here, the Sudanese case is significant in two respects. It is the first time that the Islamist movement has seized power in a dominantly Sunnite, Arab League member state, and it is also an African country that exhibits in its political, social and cultural texture all that has rightly acquired it the description of African microcosm.