El Rayah is recorded as a Sudanese student enrolled on the 1967-68 postgraduate ‘Educational Building Course’ run by the Architectural Association’s (AA) Department of Development and Tropical Studies, in London. He successfully completed the course and was formally awarded the AA Diploma in Tropical Studies in July 1968. The following year he is noted as having returned to Sudan and was working with the Building Unit of the Ministry of Education, in Khartoum. Further details of his earlier education and subsequent career are not yet known to us.

Sources

• Architectural Association Student Register, 1945-71. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Council Minutes, 22nd July, 1968. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Membership Register, 1969. AA Archives