text: Abdulbari’s mother, Kalthoum Ismail, was approaching 80 years old. Though stooping slightly, she was a tall woman whose height seemed amplified by the amount of respect given to her by everyone present. The traditional markings carved down her cheeks gave the impression of a permanent stream of tears. Like Abdulbari, her repose was serious, almost stern, but her face lit up as she ushered me inside the house to speak about her famous son.
  The ground was covered in brightly colored woven mats, and a flat-screen television playing on mute provided light to the otherwise unlit room. The room was, I learned, one of the many improvements that had been made to the house over time as Abdulbari sent back all he could from his student stipends in the United States.
  Ismail explained that before Abdulbari was born, she farmed nuts for oil in a lush area of Darfur. She was married to Abdulbari’s father, an Islamic religious scholar, and the land provided everything they needed. But Darfur offered limited educational opportunities for their children. The family moved to Khartoum; however, Abdulbari’s father missed life in Darfur and decided to return, leaving Ismail to raise Abdulbari and his six siblings. It was a struggle to support the family, but Abdulbari and his siblings helped out.
  “We call her our mother and our father,” explained Sabri, looking at his mother with pride. In periods when feeding all seven children was impossible, Ismail sent Abdulbari and his brothers to stay with an uncle. Her recollections of Abdulbari as a child matched his persona in adulthood. “He was just always very calm and quiet,” she recalled. “His only real friend was his brother because he always just came home and studied.”
  When I asked Ismail how she reacted to Abdulbari’s appointment, she began bouncing in her chair and laughing. “I couldn’t eat the whole day. Everyone from everywhere was calling me. They said, you are from here and your son is the minister of justice?” She sat back and adjusted her headscarf. “I felt like all I had done in the past was not a waste.”
  Tragically, Ismail would not get to see what her son might accomplish in his new position. Two months after I met her, I received an email from Abdulbari: “My beloved mother, the woman who made me who I am, [has] passed away.”
  Before leaving Khartoum, I asked Abdulbari again whether a transitional arrangement that includes Hemedti and other bad actors from the previous regime can really work. “They are supporting us to transition to democracy in three years, and their actions so far have been very supportive,” he said, in a way that suggested he had nothing further to say on the topic.
  Foreign diplomats speak of the political naivete of the cabinet of technocrats that Abdulbari is part of. Certainly the odds of a democratic society emerging from any dictatorship are impossibly long, and Sudan’s history makes success particularly hard to imagine. At least for the moment, though, these technocrats are supported by a coalition of civil society groups who managed to overthrow a dictatorship that years of wide-ranging U.S. government sanctions and an international arrest warrant had barely affected at all.
  During my last visit to his office, Abdulbari thumbed through a pile of papers on his desk. I commented that he looked tired, but he seemed not to hear me. “Before you go, I would like to show you something,” he said. He explained he had drafted legislation to revoke the so-called public order laws that Bashir’s regime had used as a pretext to harass and detain women who opposed the NCP. Eventually he found what he was looking for. “Here,” he said, holding up a page of bullet points. Each line revoked a provision of the existing penal code, ranging from the criminalization of women for dress infractions, such as wearing trousers, to the authorization of their public flogging. “Just one page,” he noted, a dimple appearing at the side of his mouth. He returned the paper to the pile and looked at me. “I am exhausted. But when I think of this opportunity I have that no one else has, the exhaustion falls away.”
  Soon after I arrived back in the United States, Abdulbari sent me a WhatsApp message. It contained no text, just a link to a news article: Sudan repeals public order laws, the headline announced. Abdulbari had spent years thinking about the role of the law in post-colonial states like Sudan, where a diverse array of people have been drawn inside a national boundary. He had been developing a constitutional theory, grounded in human rights principles, for the governance of his country. Now he was implementing it.
  
  Crystal Dunn gets a lift from Ali Krieger after scoring the first of her two goals at BBVA Compass Stadium. (Scott Halleran/Getty Images)