In Response to Ambassador Abdel Mahmoud Abdel Halim’s Article: Remembering Ambassador Abdel Hadi Al-Siddiq

Ambassador Atta Al-Mannan Bakhit
Ambassador Abdel Mahmoud Abdel Halim, one of the giants of Sudanese diplomacy and our esteemed teacher, has done us a great service by offering this thoughtful tribute to the late Ambassador, writer and thinker Abdel Hadi Al-Siddiq. In his article, he highlighted Abdel Hadi’s distinguished contributions to literature and political thought, focusing particularly on his profound writings on Africa, especially his invaluable work Sudan and Africanism. While we are grateful to Ambassador Abdel Mahmoud for his engaging essay, it has inspired me to shed further light on the life of Ambassador Abdel Hadi Al-Siddiq and the enduring works through which he enriched Sudanese, Arab and African intellectual heritage.
Our enchanting continent has captivated generations of Sudanese diplomats, who sought its affection and paid its dowry in ink, leaving behind newspapers, journals and books filled with their reflections. Some expressed their love through poetry; others through eloquent prose; still others delved deeply into Africa’s rich history and emerged with intellectual treasures.
Who among us does not remember Mohamed Osman Yassin, Jamal Mohamed Ahmed, Mohamed Omar Bashir, Al-Hardallo, Salah Ahmed Ibrahim, Mohamed Al-Makki Ibrahim, Osman Al-Sayyid, Nour El-Din Sati, Abdel Mahmoud Abdel Halim, Khalid Musa and many others—too numerous to mention—who were pioneers of Africanist thought within Sudanese diplomacy?
Nor was this love of Africa confined to diplomats alone. Many Sudanese historians, intellectuals and scholars wrote brilliantly about the continent. Among them, by way of example rather than limitation, are Professor Yusuf Fadl, Mohamed Ibrahim Abu Shouk, Al-Tijani Abdel Gadir, Hassan Makki, Ezz El-Din Omar Musa and Abdullah Ali Ibrahim.
Amid this widespread interest in Africa, Abdel Hadi Al-Siddiq carved out a distinctive path. He developed an intellectual approach entirely his own, becoming a school of thought in his own right—not merely within Sudan but across the continent. This is an achievement of which we should be proud and one that deserves wider recognition.
For Abdel Hadi, Africa was never simply a poem to be recited, a book to be published or a conference to be attended. He devoted his entire life to studying and researching Sudan and Africa. Unlike many others who confined themselves to history, he connected history with present realities and directed those realities towards the future. This is what gave his writings their unique character. His analysis was profound, his purpose clear, and his opinions fearless.
Let us briefly examine two of his most significant intellectual contributions: his pioneering work on the Sudanese Belt and his landmark study, Sudan and Africanism. Both stand as remarkable achievements when compared with the writings of many prominent African thinkers on these subjects.
The concept of the Sudanese Belt is particularly associated with Ambassador Abdel Hadi and reflects his intellectual courage, for the term was not welcomed by many of those whom Ambassador Abdel Mahmoud mentioned at the conclusion of his thoughtful article. Most writers preferred to speak of the Sahel or the African Sahel, while some even attempted to redefine the concept of the African Sahel in ways that excluded Sudan, as though it were not an integral part of this interconnected region.
In doing so, they sought to distort an obvious historical reality, forgetting that geographers had, for centuries, referred to the vast stretch extending from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean as the Land of the Sudan.
In his work on the Sudanese Belt, Ambassador Abdel Hadi advanced a new vision: that this belt is fundamentally a civilisational and cultural unity before it is a geographical space whose boundaries were shaped by Western colonialism at the beginning of the twentieth century. He argued that Sudan constitutes the beating heart of this civilisational entity.
This holistic understanding of the Sudanese Belt—or, indeed, of the wider Sahelian region—had long been absent from mainstream discourse, or perhaps deliberately overlooked.
A second central argument that Abdel Hadi Al-Siddiq consistently defended was that Islam, and Sufi Islam in particular, represents the principal force binding together the civilisational and cultural unity of the Sudanese Belt. He provided an extensive and persuasive discussion of the role played by Sufi orders throughout the Sahel, especially the Tijaniyya order.
His greatest contribution to African political thought, however, remains his book Sudan and Africanism. This work deserves careful study by anyone interested in Sudan’s African relations and the country’s potential role in the continent’s unity and renaissance.
The central thesis of this important book is that Africanism is not merely an attachment to a defined geographical space, nor simply a matter of skin colour distinguishing one group of people from another. Rather, it is a project of liberation and self-emancipation for both the continent and its peoples.
The book carefully distinguishes between Africanism as a movement for political liberation and Negritude as a more recent cultural movement. On this basis, Abdel Hadi traces the origins of Africanism as a political liberation movement back to the nineteenth century, presenting a detailed and comprehensive historical narrative.
He was particularly insightful in highlighting the contributions of Sudanese thinkers to the intellectual foundations of Africanism. In this context, he focused on two pivotal figures: Felix Darfur, as a civil rights activist, and Mohamed Ali Dous, whom he regarded as one of the principal theorists of Africanism.
I firmly believe that everyone who has written about Africanism—whether on the African continent or within the African diaspora in America—stands intellectually upon the foundations laid by Mohamed Ali Dous.
On this basis, Abdel Hadi reaffirmed Sudan’s historic and contemporary role within the Africanist movement, particularly its support for African liberation struggles—a commitment shared by successive Sudanese governments, as well as by its intellectuals, poets and thinkers.
Once again, Abdel Hadi Al-Siddiq restored Sudan to the leading position it rightfully occupies within the history of Africanism.
In my view, Abdel Hadi Al-Siddiq distinguished himself from many of his Sudanese and African contemporaries and secured a place of lasting respect within African intellectual history.
These brief remarks are far from sufficient to do justice to his legacy, and I conclude by once again thanking Ambassador Abdel Mahmoud for his gracious and timely tribute.

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=15103