Abd al-Rahman Siwar al-Dhahab

Field Marshal Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Hasan Siwar al-Dhahab (1934 – 18 October 2018) was a Sudanese soldier and statesman who took power during the April 1985 uprising as the army's senior commander, handed it to an elected government in 1986, and then devoted himself to da'wa and charitable work. ^{1 2}

He was born in 1934 in Omdurman to a religious family and grew up and was schooled in El-Obeid; Wikidata gives El-Obeid as his birthplace. He entered the Sudanese Military College in 1954 and was commissioned second lieutenant in 1958, then trained in Britain (Sandhurst), the United States, Egypt and Jordan, taking a master's in military science in Jordan (1970). ^{1 3}

Removed from service in 1972, he became a military adviser in Qatar, where the article says he helped separate the police from the armed forces. Returning to Sudan at the end of 1975, he rose to deputy commander-in-chief (1982) and chief of staff, and on 10 March 1985 became commander-in-chief and minister of defence. ¹

As protests over prices grew, on 6 April 1985 he announced on Omdurman radio the suspension of the constitution and the removal of President Jaafar Nimeiry and his government, chaired the Transitional Military Council, and promised to hand power to an elected government within a year. Elections were held in 1986 and he handed power to the government of Sadiq al-Mahdi; the article calls this a precedent in the history of military coups in the Arab world, and notes that some doubt that he did so of his own will. ^{1 3}

He then left politics and in 1987 became chairman of the board of the Islamic Call Organization in Khartoum; the prize's page says he was also deputy president of the World Council for Islamic Da'wa in Cairo. The prize's page says he oversaw the building of thousands of mosques and wells, and of schools, hospitals and orphanages in Sudan, Africa and parts of eastern Europe, took part in reconciliation efforts in Somalia and southern Sudan, and founded the East Nile University College. ^{1 3}

He received the King Faisal Prize for Service to Islam in 2004. ³ He died at the military hospital in Riyadh on 18 October 2018 and, at his request, was buried at al-Baqi' in Medina. ^{1 2}

Wikidata listed articles on him in twenty-four Wikipedia editions on 7 November 2026, Simple English among them. ²

• Arabic Wikipedia article, revision of 18 September 2026. ¹

• Wikidata item Q307451. ²

• The laureate's page on the King Faisal Prize's official site, read on 7 November 2026. ³