The Face of Truth: The Pope’s Story… Between Kamil Idris and Al-Turabi
Ibrahim Shiglawi
In politics, new events often return clothed in the garments of old memories. Thus, the news of Prime Minister Dr. Kamil Idris heading yesterday to the Vatican to meet the Pope, seeking support for peace efforts in Sudan, did not appear to be an ordinary event so much as it awakened in memory political and journalistic scenes from the early years of the Salvation era, when the relationship between authority and the media, and between politics and religion, was managed with a margin of openness and trust, quite different from the complexities of today’s scene.
In those years, my friend Mohammed Saleh Al-Hassan—that elegant man from Halfa—and I were taking our first steps between two worlds: the world of thought, from which we drew knowledge in the corridors of Cairo University, Khartoum Branch, where we studied philosophy; and the world of journalism, which for us at the time was an open window onto the making of history.
At that time, the university was experiencing a major political and intellectual transformation, preceding its later transition into Nilein University, in one of those transformations shaped by the student movement, or what we used to call back then, with a touch of enthusiasm, “The Republic of Students.”
In that atmosphere, politics was being made in lecture halls, in student unions, and in open debates with the university administration, between those who saw preserving the name as an extension of history, and those who saw changing it as the foundation of a national identity. These details seemed small, but in truth, they were shaping the consciousness of an entire generation of bright minds.
From there, our steps led us to the headquarters of Al-Ayyam newspaper, east of Ali Abdel Latif Street, where we met Mr. Mohammed Tawfiq, author of Al-Jamarat, one of those who believed that journalism was not merely a profession, but an entire school in understanding people, power, and time. Within days, we found ourselves at the heart of the scene: press conferences, briefing sessions, open meetings.
The government, in its early days, was keen to hold such gatherings regularly with journalists under different titles—sometimes for publication, at other times for briefing, and at times for clarifying positions.
Regardless of any political evaluation of that period, the undeniable truth is that it witnessed a degree of media openness and political trust. Part of that scene was managed by men who could be described as belonging to the reformist, dialogic school within the Islamic movement, such as Amin Hassan Omar, Sayed Al-Khatib, and Mahboub Abdel Salam—a group that believed, as it appeared to us then, that governing cannot be sustained merely by majority rule or organizational strength, but also by the ability to listen to others, engage with those who differ, and create shared spaces within the political arena.
Perhaps this is why the relationship between authority and the media, in those early years, seemed less tense and more open to dialogue.
In one of those sessions, Hassan Al-Turabi was speaking about the world, religion, and the values that create stability in societies more than force does. That day, he spoke admiringly of the Pope—not merely as the religious leader of Christians, but as a moral value and a symbol capable of influencing the collective conscience of hundreds of millions, and consequently the policies that govern them and shape their impact.
At the height of that discussion, one of the female journalists raised her hand and asked a question that seemed strange at the time: “Why don’t we have a Pope as they do?” The hall erupted in laughter and applause, but Al-Turabi, with his well-known intelligence, did not treat it as a mere question. Rather, he answered calmly that the Pope represents one of the elements that hold Christian unity together, while the Muslim nation possesses unifying values and the unity of the Qibla, making its entity based on religious and civilizational commonality, not on individual symbolism.
At the time, it seemed closer to a political anecdote—or perhaps an inability to understand the reality of Islam and its methodological foundations. But the years, as politics always does, reproduced the question in a more serious and far harsher context. Today, after more than three decades, Sudan returns to the Vatican—but this time burdened with war, division, and existential questions about the state, ambitions, society, and peace.
Today, after more than three decades, it seems that Sudan is returning to the same path, but from a different angle. Kamil Idris’s visit to the Vatican cannot be read as a conventional diplomatic move; rather, it carries an important political message.
The first is that the Sudanese government is seeking a moral and international umbrella to strengthen the discourse of peace. The second is that the Vatican, with its global spiritual and diplomatic weight, can play a role in reintroducing Sudan to the world as a state seeking coexistence rather than conflict.
The third is that the Sudanese state, despite changing regimes and faces, still realizes that when religion is invoked in politics through the gateway of values, it can become a tool for building trust and enhancing opportunities for security and peace.
The Face of Truth says: Kamil Idris’s visit to the Vatican is not merely a meeting with the Pope; rather, it is a summons to an old political memory that once saw dialogue between religion and politics, and between the internal and external spheres, as one of the keys to shaping the future. And perhaps here begins the Pope’s story… between Kamil Idris and Hassan Al-Turabi.
Stay well and in good health.
Monday, May 11, 2026
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