The Sudan under Wingate by Gabriel Warburg

Author:Gabriel Warburg [Warburg, Gabriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780429620706
Google: o161DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-10-10T03:49:33+00:00

Islam in the southern provinces

The process of Islamization of the southern provinces made considerable progress during the Turco-Egyptian period as a result of trading penetration. During the Mahdia Islam in the south suffered a set-back owing to the brutality of Mahdist raids and its fanaticism. Thus the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, by virtue of the Islamic character of its army and the lower ranks of its officials and as a result of the more permanent nature of its administration, became an agent for spreading Islam in these provinces. During the early years of the Condominium there was no consistent government action to halt the spreading of Islam in the south. The posts which were occupied by the Egyptian army attracted the northern jallāba:116 and became centres for spreading Islam. Wingate was aware:

… that for one Christian officer or official who goes into the Southern districts there are hundreds of Moslems each one of whom is, by the very nature of his religion, an embryonic missionary; moreover, the Moslem religion appeals to the blacks very much more than the Christian religion can …117

However, apart from throwing the south open to missionaries, there was little he could do. The government, fearing the effects of Muslim education, decided not to extend its educational facilities to the south. When, in 1904, the governor of Baḥr al-Ghazāl started a school for the children of the provincial staff, he was ordered by Currie, the director of education, to close it. Currie argued that by employing a Muslim teacher ‘… the net result of his teaching must tend towards Mohammedanism …’118 Wingate, who supported Currie, suggested the employment of a Lebanese teacher and stated his views about the government’s religious policy in clear terms:

… I am not at all keen to propagate Mohammedanism in countries in which that religion is not the religion of the inhabitants. As a Govt. I do not intend interfering with religious beliefs and prefer to leave all that in the hands of the Missionaries … Then again the language question comes in; the language of the Baḥr-el-Ghazāl is not really Arabic, and therefore if any foreign language is taught, it ought to be English …119

Towards the end of 1904 it became clear that Islam was making progress in the Baḥr al-Ghazāl. In consequence the governor decided to stop even the teaching of reading, writing and arithmetic. A proposal made in 1906 to re-open the school for the children of government employees was again rejected by Currie who suggested that any eligible children should be educated in Khartoum. These purely negative measures, designed to discourage Muslim education, soon proved a complete failure. Islam made rapid progress in the Baḥr al-Ghazāl as well as in the Nuba mountains and in the Mongalla province.120 Stack, then Sudan agent in Cairo, commented:

… It is sad to think that when by our administrative and civilizing efforts we are able to induce the heathen tribes of the Sudan to live at peace with their hereditary foes, the Arabs, the former

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