The Sudanese revolution, in the past year, aroused renewed interest in the ideas of African unity among the Sudanese youth, where the Nubian culture is celebrated and the ideas of revolutionary African leaders, such as the leader of the National Movement of Guinea-Bissau, Amical Cabral, and the Burkinabe leader Thomas Sankara, nicknamed Che Guevara of Africa, according to the researcher. Moroccan, music critic and academic at Columbia University Hicham Eidi.

In his article on Al Jazeera English, Idi believes that only a few people were aware of the extent of Malcolm X's attraction to the Nubian civilization, and his strong influence on Sudan.

Although many have been interested in his travels to Africa and his cultural influence, and his interactions with people such as Ghana's anti-colonial leader Kwame Nkrumah, and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

But Sudan's influence on Malcolm X's thinking — and Sudan's subsequent influence on African American culture — remains unexplored, according to Idi.

First trip to Africa

In July 1959, Malcolm X made his first trip to Africa.

He traveled as an ambassador for the Nation of Islam using a passport bearing his new name, Malik al-Shabazz, visited Sudan, Nigeria, Egypt, and a few months later Ghana, Syria and Saudi Arabia, but Malcolm X's stay in Sudan was so impressive that it left a strong impression on the 34-year-old, and until the end of his life he praised With the kindness and solidarity of the Sudanese, he recalled the wonders of Omdurman.

Malcolm X on his journey after Hajj (social networking sites)

His travel notes and letters are full of references to the Sudanese.

In one entry in April 1964, he wrote of the "quiet confidence" of the Sudanese, and in another he said, "I have never ceased to admire the Sudanese."

On August 22, 1959, Malcolm X cabled in a letter to the New York Amsterdam news that people in Africa seemed more concerned about the plight of the "brothers of America" ​​than their own conditions, and that Africans saw America's treatment of blacks as a "barometer" by which During which to measure the sincerity of American aid offers to them.

Malcolm often cited the Sudanese as evidence of Africa's support for the struggle of African Americans in the United States.

Malcolm X's mentor in Sudan was Malik Badri, a then-27-year-old psychology student (died this February 2021), who met the Muslim American leader at the Grand Hotel in Khartoum.

Al-Badri took Malcolm X on a tour of Omdurman, and invited him home for lunch.

“He (Malcolm) read a lot about the ancient Sudanese civilization. What really moved him the most was the way the Sudanese treated him,” Al-Badri recalled in a 2018 interview.

He said that Malcolm X was keen to capture everything he saw with his camera.

Al-Badri notes that Malcolm was well acquainted with Sudanese history, with a particular interest in Nubian civilization and Sudanese leader Muhammad al-Mahdi as a black anti-colonial figure.

The Nuba, after all, occupied a central role in the Nation of Islam's black American narrative.

Badri recalls walking with Malcolm X to the Caliph’s House Museum in Omdurman, across from the Mahdi’s tomb, where Malcolm spoke enthusiastically of his interest in the Mahdi, the Nubian leader who had waged a rebellion against the (Egyptian-Turkish) regime under the English tutelage and defeated The British to establish the "Mahdist state" that stretched from the Red Sea to Darfur from 1885 to 1899.

In October 1962, Malcolm X wrote in the African-American newspaper The Pittsburgh Courier, “In 1959, I visited Khartoum and Omdurman in Sudan, and I also visited Muslims in Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and Arabia. I was most influenced by the Muslims of Sudan. Their religious piety and hospitality are unmatched anywhere. I really felt like I was in heaven and at home there."

Two years later, he remembered fondly the two Sudanese students he met in Mecca and said to him spontaneously, "The Sudanese people love American Negroes," according to Idi.

The Sudanese person who played a big role in the life of Malcolm X is Ahmed Osman. 22-year-old Osman met Malcolm X by chance in July 1963 when he entered "Mosque No. 7" in Harlem, New York (it was affiliated with the Nation of Islam and is now called the Malcolm X Mosque). Othman played a crucial role in the life of the black leader, as he introduced him to Sunni Islam and persuaded him to go to the Hajj, as stated in a recent documentary film in which Othman speaks with affection about the black American leader.

The Hajj journey completely changed the life of Malcolm X, after which he left the "Nation of Islam" organization and said that "condemning all whites is equal to condemning all blacks," and some researchers - such as the late American historian Manning Marable - considered that the Hajj experience changed the life of the black American, as he found himself surrounded by an elite Of "white Arabs" and pilgrims, both white and black, as Othman explains in the documentary, "Afro-Saudis" played an important role in the journey of Malcolm X, especially the Hijazi writer Muhammad Surur al-Sabban, a Saudi poet and politician.

Al-Sabban, described by Malcolm X as "tall, black, on high alert", was appointed by King Faisal bin Abdulaziz as Secretary-General of the Muslim World League in Mecca in 1962, when Malcolm visited the Arab world.

Malcolm X with Sudanese Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun (social networking sites)

Al-Sabban appointed Sudanese Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun, who studied at the Grand Mosque in Makkah, as his spiritual advisor.

Hassoun returned to New York with Malcolm X, and resided at the Muslim Mosque.

Older people in Harlem, New York, still remember the Sudanese sheikh walking down 125th Street in his white robe, white turban, and walking cane.

A study of the influence of Sheikh Hassoun, the cultured and prolific, on Malcolm X has yet to be studied, says Idi, but he is still remembered as a good and humorous man.

He joked that after New York, he was going to spread Islam in Alaska.

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated while speaking at a rally of the Organization of African-American Unity in upper Manhattan.

That very night, Osman, then a student at Dartmouth, took the bus to New York to see Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, who asked him to arrange a traditional Muslim burial for him.

At Othman's request, Sheikh Hassoun washed Malcolm X's body and shrouded it on the eve of the burial, but he did not attend the funeral for fear of reprisals.

Thus, Sheikh Hisham Jaber, imam of the New Jersey-based Addeynu Allahu Universal Arabic Association Inc, led the funeral prayer.

Interestingly, Sheikh Jaber also says that he is of Sudanese descent, even though he was born in South Carolina.

in the post-war years.

It was not uncommon for converts to Islam to claim a “Moroccan American” or “Sudanese American” identity.

Brilliant Brooklyn-born jazz pianist Ahmed Abdel-Malik, who in the mid-1950s incorporated Arabic maqam and division into jazz compositions, also said his ancestry was Sudanese (although his parents were from Saint Vincent in the West Indies).

Hijazi writer Muhammad Surur Al-Sabban, Saudi poet and politician (social networking sites)

Ahmed Osman was a high school student during the first wave of the African "decolonization" movement, and took to the streets of Khartoum to protest the death of the assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, as well as against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Recently, he was in the Sudanese capital during what was known as the Sudanese revolution, in February 2020, where he celebrated his 78th birthday, and said in front of a gathering of Sudanese youth: "I see Malcolm X as part of the Sudanese revolution. He loved Sudan. He would love to see this Arab African nation rise." The youth of Sudan - young people everywhere - have a lot to learn from Malcolm. Today's youth can fulfill his dream."

This concludes my birthday.