Sayyid Ismail al-Azhari (1898-1969) was a political leader of the Sudan and is often called the father of the Republic of the Sudan.

Sayyid Ismail al-Azhari was born in Omdurman, the son of a religious notable. He studied at Gordon College in Khartoum and the American University in Beirut. He became a teacher of mathematics and then an administrator in the Anglo-Egyptian condominium government that ruled the Sudan during the colonial period. He and other educated Sudanese demanded greater participation in the administration of the country, and to promote their objectives they formed the Graduates' General Congress in 1938. Al-Azhari's election as secretary to the congress launched him into a career in politics.

Although the congress at first had no political aspirations, in 1942 it asserted its claim to act as the spokesman for all Sudanese nationalists. When the wartime British administration rejected this claim, the congress split into two...