It was then, in the early 1980s and in the context of a tense and emotion-filled political atmosphere, that Hafiz al-Assad proceeded to a late “Alawization” of the regime he was heading. As Syrian society was gradually splitting along sectarian lines, so the Syrian President’s dependence on his Alawi kinsmen intensified. But it is also important to keep in mind that, in spite of the late “Alawization” of the Assad regime, the country was still firmly ruled by one man, Hafiz al-Assad. While his former Sunni friend and colleague, Abdel Halim Khaddam, recognized that “Hafiz did use the broader Alawi community to save the regime”, he nonetheless asserted that “despite all the rumours there never was an ‘Alawi plot’ to take over Syria: the Assad regime should not be seen as the rule of one confession over others but rather of one man over others.”56
PART III
THE RISE OF JIHADISM IN LATE 1970s SYRIA (1963–1982)
5
THE RADICALIZATION OF THE ISLAMIC MOVEMENT (1963–1980)
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Islamic movement’s overtly sectarian tone and the violent actions of some of its most radical militants had brought the country on the verge of a sectarian civil war, with an unprecedently high human cost. Jihadist elements committed to using violence against regime targets were multiplying their initiatives and ultimately came to dominate a radicalized Islamic landscape. For its part, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership was increasingly under fire from certain segments of its membership who asked that the organization pledge to do whatever was necessary to protect the country’s Sunni Muslim population—which could mean toppling the Assad regime. As certain leaders of the Ikhwan were themselves convinced of the need to resort to weapons, the organization plunged into armed struggle—a move culminating in the Brotherhood’s endorsement of jihad against the Syrian Ba’ath in late 1979, and which will be studied in greater detail in Chapter 6. But why and how did the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization known as much for its moderate leaders and its message of compromise as for its political participation in Syrian political life and its past rejection of violence, become dominated by radical elements wishing to put it at the forefront of the violent anti-regime struggle?
The answer to this question is a complex one as it lies at the intersection of at least two mutually reinforcing trends which met in the mid-1970s. By that time, a distinctively jihadist trend, which had emerged in mid-1960s Hama, had widened the scope of its support to the rest of Syria and would greatly contribute to the overall radicalization of the Islamic movement. Its organization, the Fighting Vanguard, was situated on the fringes of the Ikhwan and is still remembered today by many Syrians who most often associate the group with an uncompromising and radical opposition to the Ba’ath. Furthermore, by 1975, the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood had switched to the “Hama clan” whose particular militancy would play a key role in the violent confrontation that the struggle against the Ba’ath assumed. This was the indirect result of a leadership crisis which plagued the Ikhwan’s ranks throughout the 1960s and eventually pitted the organization’s Damascene members, known for their moderation, against more radical members originating in other parts of the country, including Hama. In order to understand the extent to which this leadership crisis indirectly contributed to the Ikhwan’s radicalization, particularly through the ideological and political void left after the split of their “Damascus wing”, we will start by analysing the roots behind the moderation of the Damascene Brothers before going on to study the explanatory factors behind the crisis of leadership.
The moderation of the Damascus Ikhwan
Despite what its name might suggest, the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was not formed out of one single coherent organization or jamiat. Rather, it regrouped various Islamic societies which had sprung up throughout Syria in the 1930s and 1940s. Thus the Syrian Ikhwan have been characterized since their foundation by their deeply heterogeneous geographical, cultural and ideological composition. Most notably, this has meant that Ikhwani members from different parts of Syria have often identified themselves with the group which they come from geographically—each “faction” being characterized by its own peculiar political history and shaped by its local culture and its immediate socio-political environment.
While today most analysts distinguish the “Hama clan” from the “Aleppo faction”, such a distinction was throughout the 1960s superseded by the antagonism that developed between the “Damascus wing” of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and a “Northern axis” composed of Ikhwani members from Aleppo, Hama, Latakia and other cities. The schism that emerged between the two branches would have profound ideological and political consequences as, after it came to a head in the early 1970s, increasingly radical Ikhwani activists came to dominate an organization from which the moderate members of the “Damascus wing” had become marginalized. The split, which will be analysed more closely in the following paragraphs, would have far-reaching consequences on the overall evolution of the Islamist movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In order to understand the extent to which the departure of the moderate Damascene Brothers from the Ikhwan contributed to the organization’s subsequent radicalization, special attention should be paid to the reasons behind the moderation shown early on by the “Damascus wing”, a special breed of moderate Islamists who led the Muslim Brotherhood from the time of its creation until the leadership crisis of the late 1960s.
By the time of the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, most Damascene members of the organization knew each other and, as admitted by a prominent Damascene Brother, already formed a core group within the movement.1 Stemming from the conservative bastions of Damascene society, members of the “Damascus wing” often belonged to the intellectual elite and exercised professions such as lawyer, university teacher or religious scholar. Family ties united many Damascene Brothers among themselves and organically linked them to members of the Islamic reformist movement of the nineteenth century. Indeed, they were often associated with the Salafiyya trend which had emerged in Damascus in the late 1860s, an intellectual and sometimes even familial affiliation which profoundly influenced their views on politics, religion and society. For several reasons, detailed below, their own proximity to the Salafiyya movement encouraged their adoption of particularly moderate and reformist views and therefore, indirectly, surely contributed to the advent of a Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood willing to play the game of democracy and pragmatism as described in Chapter 2.
Generally speaking, the rise of the Salafiyya trend in Ottoman Syria was largely confined to Damascus where most intellectuals and religious scholars affiliated with the Islamic reformist movement were based, with the notable exception of Abdel Rahman al-Kawakibi in Aleppo. In the capital, the Syrian heirs of Muhammed Abduh and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani had given rise to an intellectual movement advocating the reform of Islam and its adaptation to the requirements of the modern world. Salafist scholars such as Abdel Razzaq al-Bitar and Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi had argued in favour of a “selective revival” of Ibn Taymiyya’s legacy which would allow for a greater use of ijtihad in order to make such modern concepts as democracy and constitutionalism compliant with Islam while rejecting the medieval Syrian jurist’s most extreme positions on topics such as excommunication and Sufism. By blending the modernist thinking of Muhammed Abduh with the reformist impulse found in Ibn Taymiyya’s teachings, the Damascene Salafists were to distinguish themselves from the orthodox Damascene ulama, or religious establishment, who were often Sufi. Through the lens of the confrontation which took place between these two religious forces at the turn of the twentieth century, one can also interpret the Damascene Salafists’ adoption of ideas embedded in Arabism and political liberalism as a reaction against the alliance which the local religious establishment had made with the autocratic Ottoman authorities of the late Tanzimat period.2 Progressively, the Salafists’ opposition to the orthodox ulama and their call for religious reform came to take on a political meaning influ
enced by growing calls on the part of Islamic reformers such as Abdel Qadir al-Jazairi and Salim al-Bukhari to replace autocratic Ottoman rule over Syria with a local—Arab—parliamentary government respecting liberties and the principle of constitutionalism. At the turn of the twentieth century, Damascene Salafists opposed the orthodox ulama allied with the autocracy of Abdulhamid II by elaborating arguments to justify constitutional government in Islamic terms; Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi, for instance, used ijtihad to make constitutionalism comply with the early Islamic principles of public welfare and avoiding harmful things (i’tibar al-masalih wa dar al-mafasid).3
The special creed of Islamic reformers which emerged in late Ottoman Syria and, for religious and sociopolitical reasons, embraced political liberalism, continued to flourish throughout the early years of the 20th century in Damascus. Many of them, professors, lawyers, doctors or religious scholars, became involved in religious societies which sprang up at that time. More particularly, al-Tamaddun al Islami can be seen as the society that apparently best represented their religious and political views and whose journal, al-Tamaddun, came to reflect the early moderation and rationalism of the Salafiyya tradition. In its columns, the Salafist scholar Bahjat al-Bitar argued in favour of equality between men and women and better relations between the Sunnis and Syria’s religious minorities. Motivated by the concern to restore the authenticity and strength of Islamic civilization in the face of foreign occupation embodied by the French Mandate in Syria, the men of al-Tamaddun naturally rejected the import of Western cultural and social influence. At the same time, they always retained a degree of openness towards the political ideals promoted by the West which did not seem to infringe upon Islamic values, such as parliamentarianism and political pluralism.4
More intellectual than political, the Damascene jamiat nonetheless comprised members who, like Mehdi al-Istambuli, Muhammed al-Mubarak and Issam al-Attar, became involved in the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria during the mid-1940s. Thus naturally characterized by an openness to democracy and political freedoms, these historical Damascene figures of the Syrian Ikhwan were a key driving force behind the organization’s acceptance of Syria’s nascent parliamentary political system. Using the principle of ijithad, Muhammed al-Mubarak for instance justified the inclusion of democratic practices in the Ikhwan’s doctrine by suggesting that Islam does not ordain a specific form of government but only lays down general rules which are to be implemented through rational discretion in accordance with the changing circumstances of their place and time.5 By stressing the modern relevance of early Islamic concepts such as public opinion (al-rai al‘amm), popular consciousness (al-Amir al-sha’bi) and consultation (shura), the Salafist Damascene members of the Muslim Brotherhood strove to incorporate values stemming from political liberalism into a seemingly authentic Islamic doctrine of democracy.
This did not mean, however, that they identified their vision of an Islamic democracy with the European and, perhaps most significantly, the French model. Early on, they strove to promote the vision of a democratic “Islamic state” in which, according to Muhammed al-Mubarak, Islam is both religion and state, making shari’a (Islamic law) the main source of inspiration for lawmakers.6 This was again in line with the spirit of the Damascene Salafists who, in the columns of al-Tamaddun, always rejected the French notion of secularism under the guiding idea of opposing state involvement in the religious sphere, rather than claiming that religion should be separated from the state.7 Striving to draw a fine line between adapting to the realities of the modern world and claiming to represent a return to the authenticity of the early Islamic message, the Damascene Salafists marked the Muslim Brotherhood early on with their moderate fingerprint.
However, they did not shy away from taking populist positions at times, many of them for instance joining the more conservative al-Gharra in its May 1944 protests against the Western dress code of certain Syrian women (see Chapter 2). Questioned on this opportunistic alliance of the Damascene Salafis with more reactionary political forces, Mohammed Hawari, one of the leaders of the Damascene Brothers, acknowledged that “in order to win over the public support, we had to ally from time to time with al-Gharra whose strong popular base, especially in the Midan quarter of Damascus, gave it much influence at the time.”8 It is also possible that the Damascene Brothers were at times influenced by the emergence of a more doctrinal wing within their camp, represented by rising figures such as Zuhair Shawish, Muhammed Surur and Muhammed el-Abdeh, all inspired by the more literalist and orthodox vision of Islam promoted by the “attenuated Wahhabism”9 of a conservative religious scholar residing in Damascus, Nasir al-Din al-Albani. All in all, however, the Damascene Brothers and their Salafi followers always strove to promote the moderate vision of an Islamic state shaped by democratic forces and social reform, never calling for armed struggle against successive political regimes.
The peaceful and moderate political platform put forward by the Damascene Brothers would profoundly mark the years during which one of their most prominent leaders, Issam al-Attar, took over the reins of the Syrian Ikhwan, between 1957 and 1969. Under the leadership of Mustapha al-Sibai, who, despite being from Homs, shared many of the intellectual and political orientations of the Damascene Brothers, Ikhwani members from the capital such as Muhammed al-Mubarak had already risen to prominence.
When Mustapha al-Sibai became weaker after a debilitating stroke in 1957, he gradually relinquished his leadership to the young, well-read Damascene and former high school teacher Issam al-Attar, a move formalized after al-Sibai’s death in October 1964. At first, al-Attar, then the leading figure of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Damascus wing”, concentrated his efforts on spreading the Islamic message to the masses through education and preaching rather than through political activities. This was especially the case during the short-lived union with Egypt, lasting from 1958 to 1961, during which political parties were banned and the Muslim Brotherhood dissolved. The organization soon returned to politics, however, when a group of officers led the Syrian split from the United Arab Republic, in 1961. Elections were held and the “Islamic Front”, the political label of the Ikhwan, won ten seats, Issam al-Attar being elected member of Parliament for the district of Damascus. This was a brilliant electoral success for the Muslim Brotherhood, which was offered ministerial responsibilities in the government formed after the elections by Ma’ruf al-Dawalibi, himself a figure close to the Islamic movement.
The return to parliamentary democracy in Syria proved difficult, however, as most political parties had become weak after Nasser’s suppression of parliamentary activities during the time of the UAR. But, as political instability was growing, with governments succeeding one another and the army taking a leading role in directing the country’s institutions, the moderate, Damascene imprint on the Muslim Brotherhood also became clearer.
In a move symbolizing the Damascene leadership’s attachment to parliamentary democracy and peaceful political change, Issam al-Attar crucially refused to take part in a coup d’état prepared in 1962 by Abdel Karim Nahlawi, an officer who had already taken a leading role in the Syrian split from the UAR. “Nahlawi proposed me to join him in overturning the government but I refused, I am a man of principles and I never thought that military involvement into politics could bring any good to democracy,”10 the historic Damascene figure explained in an interview. A few months later, as the political crisis was deepening, Issam al-Attar was summoned to the presidential palace. In an act reflecting the Muslim Brotherhood’s rapidly growing political influence, the President, Nazim al-Qudsi, proposed to the leader of the Islamic Front that he should form a government and become Prime Minister. According to Issam al-Attar, the President posed two conditions for taking up the premiership. First, the Ikhwani leader, who had been an early supporter of the UAR, would have to renounce for good the idea of a reunification with Egypt. Second, he would have to support the large-scale and violent repression of all the other political forces wh
ich the President and the army were in the midst of preparing. That night, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood walked out of the presidential palace having refused to become Syria’s Prime Minister, in a move on which he still prides himself, “having supported the principles of liberty and justice which I have always cherished in my heart”.11
Issam al-Attar’s important decision, however, was far from achieving a consensus of approval inside his organization. Until today, some within the Ikhwan’s ranks still criticize Issam al-Attar for his handling of the situation at the time, pointing out the “historic mistake” which he made by refusing to take up power and leaving a political void quickly filled after the Ba’ath takeover in March 1963. This would be one of the many criticisms formulated against the Damascene leader which eventually led to his resignation from the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1960s, with profound consequences for the overall evolution of the Syrian Islamic movement.
Ashes of Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria Page 11
