The Sudan Handbook

338 thE sudan handbook

worked briefly for Sudan railways before starting his own engineering

business. In 1945 he founded, with a small group of like-minded friends,

the Republican Party, a nationalist party that opposed colonial rule and

published a series of inflammatory pamphlets which led to his arrest

and brief imprisonment in 1946. Later that year he was again imprisoned

after organizing a public demonstration in Rufaa. During this second

period in prison, he underwent a spiritual transformation and devel-

oped a new, mystical interpretation of Islam. The Republican Party was

transformed from a political party into an organization known as the

Republican Brothers to promulgate this new concept of Islam, which

they did throughout the 1970s and 1980s through public lectures and

the distribution of their publications. In the latter days of the Nimeiri

government, he published a leaflet demanding the repeal of Nimeiri’s

‘September laws’ that introduced sharia. He was charged with apostasy

and publicly hanged in the courtyard of Kober Prison in Khartoum on

18 January 1985.

Malik AGaR LyRE. Soldier and politician. An Ingessana (Gamk), he

was educated at the University of Khartoum. He joined the SPLM/A in

1986. After the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement he became Minister
      of Investment in the Government of National Unity. In July 2007 he gave
      up this position to become the Governor of Blue Nile state. He won the
      governorship in the April 2010 elections. He is an outspoken advocate of
      increased autonomy for Blue Nile. He was selected as the first Chairman
      of the new party in northern Sudan to replace SPLM Northern Sector on
      8 July 2011, immediately prior to South Sudan’s independence.

MEk NimR (1745–1846). Traditional leader of the Jaaliyin tribe at

Shendi, then one of the kingdoms under the Funj Sultanate, in the

early nineteenth century. In 1821 he submitted without resistance to the

invading army of Ismail Pasha, the son of Muhammad Ali, the Egyptian

ruler. But returning north a year later, Ismail is said to have slighted

Mek Nimr, striking him across the face with a pipe. Mek Nimr invited

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors Ismail and his soldiers to camp that night at Shendi, and when they were

(www.riftvalley.net).