Inclusion of ‘The Creation of Adam’ in Education Curricula Sparks Controversy in Sudan

Sudan's Director of the Educational Curricula Center Omar Ahmed Al-Qarray | Asharq Al-Awsat
Sudan's Director of the Educational Curricula Center Omar Ahmed Al-Qarray | Asharq Al-Awsat
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Inclusion of ‘The Creation of Adam’ in Education Curricula Sparks Controversy in Sudan

Sudan's Director of the Educational Curricula Center Omar Ahmed Al-Qarray | Asharq Al-Awsat
Sudan's Director of the Educational Curricula Center Omar Ahmed Al-Qarray | Asharq Al-Awsat

In Sudan, Islamists and advocates of the ousted regime of Omar al-Bashir have waged a fierce campaign against the country’s Director of the Educational Curricula Center Omar Ahmed Al-Qarray over the sixth grade’s history book containing “The Creation of Adam” by Italian artist Michelangelo.

Apart from Qarray receiving death threats, Islamists have also threatened to prohibit the teaching of the academic curriculum. They argued that the work of art is blasphemous in its attempt to portray the divine.

Qarray, alongside a host of supporters, considered the painting an important work of art that is worth studying away from any religious context. He also warned that followers of the former regime are using the painting as an excuse to push their self-styled curriculums.

Campaigns both with and against Qarray have taken over social media.

Some accused him of exploiting curriculums to promote republican ideology formerly held by Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, who was executed for apostasy by the regime of Gaafar Nimeiry.

Others supported Qarray’s effort to turn around a curriculum tailored to Muslim Brotherhood dogma, saying that it advances the goals of the revolution that toppled Bashir’s Islamist regime. They added that the new curriculum gets the new generation to step out of the shadows of extremism that the former regime introduced to rather tolerant Sudanese religiosity.

On October 17, 2019, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok entrusted Qarray with rewriting school curricula.

Hamdok tasked Qarray with purging material taught in schools from Muslim Brotherhood influence, which had dominated education in the African country for the last three decades.

Qarray, for his part, described the campaign organized against him on social media sites, some mosques, and places of worship as unfair dishonest.

Defending the inclusion of “The creation of Adam,” Qarray told a presser that this was not the first time the painting appears in Sudanese curriculums, and that it was already studied in the arts curriculum at the Islamic University without anyone criticizing it.

He launched a violent attack on the Islamic Fiqh Academy of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments, which issued a statement declaring the prohibition of teaching the new history curriculum to sixth graders.



UK Plans to Recognize Palestinian State in September Unless Israel Takes Action

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump (not pictured) hold a bilateral meeting at Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump (not pictured) hold a bilateral meeting at Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)
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UK Plans to Recognize Palestinian State in September Unless Israel Takes Action

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump (not pictured) hold a bilateral meeting at Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump (not pictured) hold a bilateral meeting at Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday Britain was prepared to recognize a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations General Assembly unless Israel takes a number of steps to improve life for Palestinians. 

Britain, if it acts, would become the second Western power on the UN Security Council to do so after France last week, reflecting Israel's deepening isolation over its conduct in its war against Hamas in Gaza, where a humanitarian disaster has set in and the Palestinian death toll has risen above 60,000. 

Starmer said Britain would make the move unless Israel took substantive steps to allow more aid to enter Gaza, made clear there will be no annexation of the West Bank and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a "two-state solution" - a Palestinian state coexisting in peace alongside Israel. 

"The Palestinian people have endured terrible suffering," Starmer told reporters. "Now, in Gaza, because of a catastrophic failure of aid, we see starving babies, children too weak to stand, images that will stay with us for a lifetime. The suffering must end." 

Starmer said his government would make an assessment in September on "how far the parties have met these steps", but that no one would have a veto over the decision. 

He took the decision after recalling his cabinet during the summer holidays on Tuesday to discuss a new proposed peace plan being worked on with other European leaders and how to deliver more humanitarian aid for Gaza's 2.2 million people. 

Successive British governments have said they will formally recognize a Palestinian state when the time is right, without ever setting a timetable or specifying the necessary conditions. 

With warnings from international aid agencies that people in Gaza are facing starvation, a growing number of lawmakers in Starmer's Labor Party have been asking him to recognize a Palestinian state to raise pressure on Israel. 

The issue came to the fore after President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday France would recognize Palestine as a state in territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. 

Israel and staunch supporter the United States blasted France's move, branding it a reward for Palestinian Hamas fighters who ran Gaza and whose attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 triggered the current war. 

At the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, when Starmer was the opposition leader, he fully backed Israel's right to defend itself. But his stance has shifted over the years to a tougher approach to Israel, especially since his election as prime minister just over a year ago. 

His government dropped the previous government’s challenge over arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and has suspended some weapon sales to Israel. 

Last month, Britain sanctioned two far-right Israeli cabinet ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, accusing them of repeatedly inciting violence against Palestinians.