With a legacy of Sufi-inspired Mahdism in the nineteenth century and with Sufi-organized political sectarianism dominating northern Sudanese politics from that century on, Sudan's middle-class, modernist Islamist revolution of 1989, promulgated through a military coup d'état, can, in a number of ways, be seen as a model of an attempt to build a Sunnī republic. Significant aspects of its modernist character have been the mobilization of public consciousness of citizenship in an Islamic state and the conspicuous gendering of the processes involved.

Islamist women activists have…