We have all seen videos of the carnage in Sudan. The civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia has been ongoing for the past few years. Things came to a head in the past week when the RSF took over the city of El-Fasher, killing thousands, and causing tens of thousands to flee. This was after they had besieged and starved the city for 18 months. The people fleeing have described scenes of senseless violence, mass killing and sexual crimes.

How are we to make sense of what is happening in Sudan, especially when it appears that both the perpetrators and the victims are Muslim? More importantly, what can we do to defend our brothers and sisters?

 The Key Players

Since the fall of Sudan decades long dictator Al Bashir in 2019, there has been a power vacuum in Sudan. Protestors took to the street to speak up against Bashir’s corrupt rule, resulting in his arrest by the Sudanese Army. The Army initially tried to install its own people, but the protesters persisted in their defiance to people who do not represent the values or interests of the Sudanese people. Eventually, the protestors acceded to a power sharing arrangement between the army and an unelected civilian transitional government. This civilian government was as unrepresentative of the people as the army would have been, was equally beholden to the agenda of foreign powers, and was eventually arrested by the Army. 

A key part of the military rule was the RSF, an independent paramilitary outfit created by Bashir when he was in power. While both the RSF and the Sudanese armed forces collaborated in the ouster of Bashir, and the demise of the civilian government, in 2023, the RSF became engaged in armed conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces, reportedly due to a power struggle between the leaders. 

A Closer Look

A closer look will reveal that the RSF exploits tribal differences in Sudan, working with tribes that identify as Arab, and inflicting violence on tribes that identify as non-Arab, particularly in the Darfur province of Sudan of which el-Fasher is the capital. 

It is also clear that the RSF is significantly funded by the UAE, who is said to be expanding its influence in resource-rich Sudan via the paramilitary militia. It should be noted that the UAE is not an independent power broker in the Middle East. Rather, any significant action it takes, whether it be normalization with the Zionists, its previous support for al-Bashir’s army, and its current support of the RSF would have to be acceptable to the colonial powers, including the UK and the United States. In fact, Amnesty International has reported that some of the weapons found with the RSF are made in the UK, which clearly would have been supplied to them via the UAE.

What we can surmise from this is that the Capitalist superpowers and their agents in the Muslim world are exploiting both the tribal and ethnic fault lines in the Muslim world, along with corrupt and opportunistic politicians, to weaken and reshape Muslim lands in ways that they see fit. They have already carved out South Sudan from the rest of the country; it is conceivable for them to be able to create a separate nation out of Darfur as well. 

An Old Playbook

It is in the interests of the colonial powers for the Muslim lands to be divided, unstable and run by corrupt, self-serving rulers. This has been their strategy with the Muslim world since the days of the Ottoman Khilafah (Caliphate), when they paid Arab leaders to revolt against the Khilafah on nationalistic grounds.

The reason for this strategy is obvious. The unique strength of the Muslims, emanating straight from our aqeedah, is our immense solidarity with the Ummah. Islamic leadership in the past could draw upon the strength, resources, training and wealth of lands across three continents to defend and expand the Islamic civilization. Allah (SWT) refers to this unique ability when he says: 

“But if they intend to deceive you – then sufficient for you is Allah. It is He who supported you with His help and with the believers And brought together their hearts. If you had spent all that is in the earth, you could not have brought their hearts together; but Allah brought them together. Indeed, He is Exalted in Might and Wise.” [TMQ 8:62-63]

This political unity, bestowed upon this Ummah by Allah (SWT), remained with us throughout our history. It is what enabled RasulAllah (SAW) to transform disparate warring tribes in Arabia to a force that conquered Rome and Persia, and what allowed Muslim to convey the message of Islam from the forests of Indonesia to the beaches of Morocco.

This unity was not just emotional, rather it was part of a system revealed to us by Allah (SWT) that provides prescriptive solutions for how Muslim should manage their social, economic and political affairs.

The enemies of Islam were only able to weaken us by dismantling this unity, and this system. They did this by replacing the Islamic system with laws, constitutions and institutions based on Democratic laws. And they did this by introducing to the Muslim world the concept of the Nation State, drawing lines on a map to create divided, unstable and despotic regimes across our lands. And they have not stopped drawing these lines, even today. 

 What Is to Be Done?

It is easy to assign blame to the enemies of Islam when confronted with the tragedies of this Ummah; from the destruction of Gaza to the bloodshed in El-Fasher. But it would be dishonest to not point the finger at ourselves first and foremost. 

Ultimately, disunity is a choice. While it is important to be aware of the plans of the colonial powers, we have to take responsibility for our current state. We are an Ummah whose current ruling elites are unable to defend its borders without groveling to the US for help and support. These same treacherous ruling elites are busy displacing and fighting each other instead of ending the butchery in Gaza. They are also content to sit back and watch as treacherous criminals in the UAE fund and profit off of the chaos and misery in Sudan. 

As long as we continue to accept and follow these corrupt ruling elites and submit to the tyrannical regimes that they impose in the Muslim lands, then we fail in our responsibilities. We continue to feed into a system that allows the worst actors to exploit our weakness against us.

It is only when we collectively organize as an Ummah to learn about the systems of Islam, and to mobilize for its revival in the Muslim lands that we can liberate ourselves from cycles of instability and violence. 

It is time for us as Muslims in Canada, regardless of how far we are from the Muslim lands, to go beyond the prayers for our brothers and sisters in Sudan, and beyond donating to meet their immediate needs, but also to mobilize ourselves in support of the revival of the Islamic way of life all across the Muslim world by re-establishing the ruling system of Islam, the Khilafah state on the method of the prophethood. May Allah (SWT) make us a part of His promised victory.

“And hold firmly together to the rope of Allah and do not be divided. Remember Allah’s favour upon you when you were enemies, then He united your hearts, so you—by His grace—became brothers. And you were at the brink of a fiery pit and He saved you from it. This is how Allah makes His revelations clear to you, so that you may be ˹rightly˺ guided. Let there be a group among you who call ˹others˺ to goodness, encourage what is good, and forbid what is evil—it is they who will be successful. And do not be like those who split ˹into sects˺ and differed after clear proofs had come to them. It is they who will suffer a tremendous punishment.”. [TMQ 3:103-105]