330 thE sudan handbookAli Abd al-Latif (c.1892–1948). Born in Wadi Halfa to Nuba and
Dinka parents, former slaves. A graduate of Gordon Memorial College
who served as an officer in the Egyptian army and fought in the punitive
campaigns of the Anglo-Egyptian government in the south. He rose to
national prominence as the leader of the White Flag League, promoting a
form of Sudanese nationalism that transcended ethnic and class distinc-
tions. He was scorned by Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi and Ali al-Mirghani,
the two most prominent sectarian leaders of that period, as well as many
other members of the elite, who viewed him as an upstart. The White
Flag League was suppressed by Britain in 1924 and quickly fell apart. Abd
al-Latif died many years later in confinement in Cairo. Today, he is widely
remembered in Sudan as a hero of the anti-colonial struggle.Ali al-MiRGhani (1878–1968). Political leader, a member of the
Mirghani family and the head of the Khatmiyya Sufi order. His family
worked with the authorities of the Turkiyya and were strongly opposed to
the Mahdi and his movement. He lived in Cairo throughout the Mahdiyya
era, and subsequently cooperated in the Anglo-Egyptian ‘reconquest’ of
Sudan. From the 1930s until Independence in 1956, he was the patron
of the nominally pro-Egyptian party, the NUP, a position determined
more by his longtime rivalry with the Mahdi’s son Abd al-Rahman,
who supported independence, than by a genuine desire for union with
Egypt. He remained influential in the era of civilian government after
independence.Ali Osman MohamEd Taha (b. 1944). Politician and prominent
member of Sudan’s Islamist movement. The son of a railway worker,
Ali Osman Taha joined the Islamist movement while still a student
at secondary school. He began his political career in parliament as an
outspoken critic of Sadiq al-Mahdi’s administration in the latter half of
1980s. He was Turabi’s heir to the leadership of the Islamist movement.
Appointed Minister of Social Affairs in the NIF government, he oversaw
the Islamist project to reorient state and society along Islamist lines inThe Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors the early 1990s. When the movement split in 1999, he sided with Omar
(www.riftvalley.net).