Islam in Sudan was deeply and intensely rooted in the diverse environments of Sudan, which began to draw from this Islamic culture. The widespread prevalence of Sufi orders characterized Islamic life on a large scale, and this spirit dominated religious life. Scholars were inclined to join Sufi orders and were imbued with the spirit of tradition, in addition to the dual roles of jurisprudence and Sufism in more than one aspect.

The country also did not witness tangible progress in urban life or material luxury that would lay the foundations for the flourishing of literature and sciences. Whatever the factors that contributed to the scarcity of intellectual output in this stage of imitation, it seems to me that the dominance of religious spirit among scholars was responsible for the spirit of awe and hesitation in writing, fearing mistakes.

I wish we could reach works or manuscripts about Sudanese scientific production before the thirteenth Hijri century, the nineteenth AD, which were authored by Sudanese scholars before that period. In reality, what Sudanese scholars, sheikhs, and Islamic religious men authored does not rise to the level of original scientific production as we witness in Egypt, the Hejaz, the Arab Maghreb, or the Levant and Iraq.

Indeed, there are some opinions that state that Sudanese scientific production did not reach the production of the scholars of Western Sudan in Timbuktu, the states of Mali and Songhai, where works by many of these African scholars have reached us, such as the works of Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti, Ahmad ibn Fartu, Abd al-Rahman al-Sa'di, Mahmud Kat, and many others from the sons and scholars of Jenné, Timbuktu, Gao, and other Islamic scientific centers in West Africa. This is despite the indication of many sources that many students from these lands traveled to Azar, Bajirmi, Kay, Wiznu, the Sultanate of the Fulani, the Emirates of Hausa, Mali, Sennar, and Tekrur to receive knowledge at the hands of Sudanese scholars in Sennar, Darfur, Kordofan, and many others in Ad-Damer and some other Sudanese cities, which indicates the existence of a sophisticated Sudanese Islamic scientific life.

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