? -
Supporter of women's rights in Sudan.
Wisal al-Mahdi Turabi, a member of the large landowning al-Mahdi aristocracy, is the wife of Hasan al-Turabi, founder of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood and architect of the National Islamic Front (NIF) takeover of Sudan by military coup d'etat in 1989. Her brother, Sadiq al-Mahdi, is a leader of the influential Umma Party who has twice been prime minister of Sudan. Although the Umma Party and the NIF have been rivals, they both support Muslim women's activism, in which Wisel al-Mahdi has played a prominent role.
When the NIF seized power in 1989, the activist band of Islamists mobilized its female adherents. Wisal al-Mahdi became a spokeswoman for NIF policies such as mandatory veiling and the removal of women from "humiliating" public jobs, such as waitresses and gas station attendants. She upheld the right of women to hold high-status positions, such as judges and government ministers, and she supported shariĘża as state law.
Although a trained lawyer, Wisal al-Mahdi has not practiced law and appears to adhere to a conservative Muslim role for women, maintaining a proper ShariĘż home and providing support for her husband's national and international roles as a leading figure in the global Islamist movement. Nevertheless, some of her public comments reveal a radical Islamist feminism, blaming Arab patriarchy for the oppression of women in Sudan and elsewhere.
Bibliography
Hale, Sondra. Gender Politics in Sudan: Islamism, Socialism, and the State. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996.
— CAROLYN FLUEHR-LOBBAN
