Professor Osama 'Abd al-Rahman al-Nur - Eulogy/Mahgoub El-Tigani

Dear Readers
,

The shocking loss of the distinguished archaeologist Professor Osama 'Abd al-Rahman al-Nur, who passed away in London this month, is particularly felt in the critical areas of Sudanese archaeology and cultural anthropology where Osama had been struggling all his professional and academic life to advance via a most important project of Sudanic Unity on the basis of a national cultural heritage with diverse religious and ethnic origins. Osama, moreover, was prominent in his eminent area of research, the Paleolithic Sudan, the one preceding by hundreds of thousands of years the relatively clearer episodes of the country's medieval and modern histories.

The al-Nur struggles to bring to light these pre-historic ages to the forefront of Sudanese academia as well as the country's public life are rarely shared by a few great archaeologists and/or cultural anthropologists of the caliber of William Adams, who wrought creatively on lost times of the story of ancient Nubia through wonderful Pre-Historic Cultural Horizons of Nubia, as well as Richard Lobban, Jr., and his colleagues' decades' research to de-cipher the pre-Christian Meroitic secretive scripts into a readable contemporary language. Few other scholars stand on equal stature to these scientists, including, to mention a few, the archaeologists Risner and Shinne, historians Termingham, Holt, Abu Saleem, and Ghadal, and the cultural anthropologists Diop and Davidson.

In 1992, the Golden Ram, a most refined artifact of the Sudan's Ancient Nubia was "stolen" from the National Museum in Khartoum, as strangely announced by the Ministry of Culture and Information, then led by Mohamed Ahmed 'Abdullahi, an NIF leader who held by heart a sacred oath to destroy all pre-Islamic heritage, as far as his ministry was authorized. The former minister ‘Abdullahi was delighted to purge Osama with many other leading professionals from the ministry as a significant implementation of the Salvation Revolution's Civilization Project in 1989.

Then in Cairo, in exile with hundreds of the Sudanese professionals, experts, and politicians forced to live in exile by the self-proclaimed salvation of the National Islamic Front, Professor Osama expressed his deep shock at the news on the Museum’s loss in a campaign addressed to both opposition and government to respect the Sudanic heritage of the country, return the Golden Ram to the Museum, and take other measures to stop the craze of the Salvation destruction of Sudan’s archaeology.

Up to this moment, Ram is reported missed. The great treasure of Sudan might have well founded its way, by “State thieves,” to a few authoritative fingers or necks in the form of fashion ornaments.

Osama, however, was much more concerned for the NIF strategy to eradicate Nubian pre-historic and pre-Islamic archaeology, all together. The Kajbar Dam is a case in point. It will inundate much of the remaining treasures of Nubia, which constitutes an intrinsic part of human heritage and is a profound source of the true origins of the Sudanese with critical implications to the ongoing issues of peace, national unity, and social justice.

In fact, Dr. Ahmed Tarawa, whose tribute on Osama is forwarded below (courtesy of the Intifada List), highlighted an admirable profile of Dr. Osama after he had been unfairly purged from his position as the Director-General of Sudan's Department Antiquities: Osama roamed the streets of Khartoum as a taxi driver saluting his colleagues, the other purged leaders of the country's public service and scholarly life, still moving on with his scientific plans and professional works in high spirit inside the country and later in exile.

The Sudan's dismissed calibers are still roaming streets, patriotically holding the Cause of the Nation on the permanent peace, religious and cultural equality, and even development for all regions indiscriminately. That all those purged should immediately return to their positions is No. 1 agenda, just as all political and economic agenda of Sudan are highly considered by the Opposition, Government, and the International at large.

Hope is for the new generations that Dr. Usama and his colleagues had been preparing, regardless of all sorts of difficulties, political hostilities, or NIF destructive governance, to make true the sacred Mission of the Sudanic Unity and Progression with perfectionist mannerisms, amicable relations, deep patriotism, meaningful learning, scientific research, and enlightening exchange of knowledge with the whole world.

May the Almighty Lord shower your soul, Osama, with His Oft-benevolence and Mercy.

Mahgoub El-Tigani

Posted today Saturday May 26, 2007 in:
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