Hassan 'Abd Allah al Turabi[ (February 1, 1932 – March 5, 2016) is a Sudanese Islamist politician who is crucial in the success of the 1989 coup that brings Omar Al-Bashir to power
He is instrumental in institutionalizing sharia (Islamic law) in the northern part of the country and is frequently imprisoned in Sudan.
Al-Turabi is leader of the National Islamic Front (NIF) (which changes its name to National Congress in the late 1990s), a political movement that develops considerable political power in Sudan while never obtaining significant popularity among Sudanese voters
It embraces a "top down" approach to Islamization by placing party members in high posts in government and security services.
Turabi and the NIF reach the peak of their power from 1989 following a military coup d'état, until 2001, as head of the only Sunni Islamist movement to take control of a state.
Turabi oversees highly controversial policies such as the creation of the "NIF police state" and associated NIF militias, which consolidates Islamist power and preventsa popular uprising, but reportedly commits many human rights abuse.
Turabi is a leader of opposition to the American-Saudi "coalition forces" in the Gulf War, establishing in 1990–1991 the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress (PAIC), a regional umbrella for political Islamist militants, headquartered in Khartoum.
After 1996, al-Turabi and his party's "internationalist and ideological wing" see a decline in influence in favor of more pragmatic leaders, brought on by the imposition of UN sanctions on Sudan in punishment for Sudan's assistance to Egyptian terrorists in their attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Turabi is out of power beginning in 1999, leading a splinter group of the National Congress known as the Popular National Congress.
His most recent imprisonment is January 17, 2011, for nine days, following civil unrest across the Arab world.
