Ashes of Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria Read online

  Structure and content of the book

  This book will be chronological in form, privileging a historical rather than thematic treatment of political Islam’s peculiar evolution throughout the twentieth century. In order to understand the moderate and, sometimes, more radical strands of thought informing Syrian representatives of political Islam to this day, it will first undertake an overview of the intellectual and political basis upon which their ideology is structured. Such an overview must, by its very nature, be only partial as its goal is to provide readers with a general understanding of the origins of Syria’s Islamic movement; more detailed studies exist on the subject for those who are so inclined. The first section of this book, dealing with the inroads of political Islam up to 1963, the date of the Ba’athist takeover, will also examine the way in which Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood initially managed to reconcile political Islam and democracy—the first experiment of this kind in the Arab world.

  The second section of this book will look in more detail at the socioeconomic, political and ideological dynamics which have unleashed historic opposition, continuing to the present day, between political Islam and the Syrian Ba’ath. Particular attention will also be paid to the deadly wave of sectarianism which gripped the country’s various religious communities in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with consequences so significant that they continue to be felt today. Even though a separate chapter deals with this complex issue, the 1970s uprisings must still be viewed in the wider political environment which encompassed them, as virtually all factors in that wider context overlap.

  In the third section, particular attention will be devoted to the complex ideological and political circumstances in which Syria witnessed the rise of a violent and radical jihadist trend. First, the scene in which the radicalization of the Islamic movement took place will be set. This will involve a detailed discussion of the leadership crisis shaking Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood at the time which laid the foundation for the departure of its more moderate members and the ascendance of a radical wing. Special attention will also be paid to the rise of a well-organized jihadist organization, born on the fringes of the Brotherhood, the Fighting Vanguard (al-Talia al-Muqatila), illustrating the extent to which the advent of a powerful jihadist stream in today’s Syria is a likely development if a political settlement is not reached any time soon. The role of the Syrian Brotherhood in these developments will also be examined while bearing in mind the unprecedented human and political cost of the organization’s opposition to Ba’athism.

  The consequences of the Muslim Brotherhood’s exile following the Hama massacre of February 1982 will be the topic of the final section of this book. Deprived of its most moderate voice inside Syria, the country’s Islamic movement developed along divergent paths. One trend, a minority, continued its struggle against secularism on the global stage while preparing itself to return to Syria when time came. In the meantime, the Ba’athist authorities understood the power of political Islam and sought to tame the remaining expression of this political current to their advantage. The other strand, comprising the remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood itself, was forced into exile. While the organization was at first caught in a cycle of internal crisis, it was eventually able to recover its coherence and to restructure itself, to the extent that, by the time of the Arab uprisings, it would once again become the regime’s most powerful political opponent.

  PART I

  POLITICIZING ISLAM (1860–1963)

  1

  THE EMERGENCE OF A POLITICIZED ISLAM IN SYRIA (1860–1944)

  While 1945 marks the official and organizational birth of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, its intellectual and political roots can be traced back to decades earlier. Some date the Syrian Ikhwan’s foundation to the emergence of politically active jamiat, or clubs and societies, in the 1920s and 1930s. The proliferation of such societies certainly helped to foster an environment in which political Islam became more influential, as will be seen in the second part of this chapter. The success of these Islamic societies in 1920s and 1930s Syria also explains much of the populist discourse put forward by the Syrian Ikhwan in the 1940s and 1950s. The Syrian Brotherhood’s intellectual foundations, however, are found in late Ottoman Syria when, between 1860 and 1914, the Salafiyya movement reached Damascus and became so influential in local Islamic circles that it would later shape the Ikhwan’s reformist and moderate agenda between 1946 and 1969. Studying this movement is also important insofar as it greatly contributed to giving a militant taste to the rise of a politico-religious movement throughout the region, including the Syrian Ikhwan.

  The Salafiyya movement sought to reform Islam from within in order to give the Arab world the resources deemed necessary to confront the challenges of European domination. The “Salafism” which would emerge out of this trend was therefore primarily intellectual and political in its aims and peaceful in its means. Thus it had little to do with the “Salafist” descriptor attached to radical Islamists who today seek to literally emulate the way of life of the Prophet Muhammad and are sometimes willing to resort to violence. These are actually the product of a contemporary mixture of radical Salafism with the Saudi literalist movement, Wahhabism. The use of the term “Salafist” in the following pages and chapters therefore does not refer to current debates on Islam and political violence but rather to a revivalist and reformist movement which profoundly shaped the way in which religion came to take on a political hue at the turn of the twentieth century—laying down the ideological foundations for the rise of politico-religious movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

  While the Salafiyya movement was regional in scope, it took different forms in each Arab country it reached. In Syria, the specific socioeconomic landscape and the country’s sectarian makeup contributed to the rise of a particularly moderate politico-religious trend instinctively favouring political pluralism and religious tolerance. Understanding the ideological and historical context into which this trend emerged is crucial for it helps understanding the early moderation of the Syrian Brothers who were to embrace parliamentary democracy and sectarian tolerance at the dawn of Syria’s independence in 1946.

  The “Damascus school”: the Salafiyya movement in Syria

  Before investigating what intellectual substance is hidden behind references to the Salafiyya movement, a brief glance at the historical circumstances surrounding its emergence in the Middle East will help to illustrate the context in which it first appeared. By the middle of the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire, long the dominant political and religious force in the region, had become a shadow of its former self. A thriving Islamic empire ruling over the Middle East and parts of Asia and Europe for centuries, it was now seriously challenged by the advance of Western powers keen on benefiting from the technological development they had enjoyed since the Enlightenment to gain a foothold in the rich and strategically important Middle East. In the 1820s and 1830s, the great European powers had started to challenge Ottoman authority on cultural and economic grounds and, by the 1870s and 1880s, relations between the two sides became more directly confrontational. The Russo-Turkish war of 1877 threatened the very seat of the caliphate and the borders of the Ottoman Empire were challenged by the French and the British who, by the early 1880s, had begun their military occupation of Tunisia and Egypt.

  Challenged by European powers on every front—from technology to culture and political values—the elites of the Middle East reacted in two very distinct ways. Many pushed the Ottoman rulers to emulate and adopt the administrative, political and economic reforms which had seemingly enabled Western countries to reach their unprecedented might—a movement culminating in the Tanzimat reforms. Others, however, were convinced that imitating the West would not provide answers to the region’s specific problems and that an indigenous response was instead preferable.

  The most articulate proponent of the latter option was the Muslim activist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838–97), who, through his active struggle agains
t British imperialism in late 1870s India and Egypt, put forward a vision for renewing the strength of Islamic civilization across the Middle East and South East Asia. Travelling from Istanbul to Cairo, he gave public speeches drawing the masses in which he called for the unification of the entire Umma, the worldwide Muslim community. His attempts went beyond formulating a renewed vision of pan-Islamism. Strongly influenced by the power of nationalism, which he had witnessed during anti-British riots in India, he was convinced that a blend of patriotism and religious zeal would instil the enthusiasm necessary for revitalizing Islamic civilization. By referring to the Islamic community as a “nation”, Afghani advocated a form of pan-Islamic nationalism resting on the faith and purity typical of the Age of the Prophet when Muslims enjoyed prosperity. What he meant was that Muslims could find in their own history and religion the tools necessary to effectively tackle the challenges emanating from the West.1

  Afghani’s call did not go unnoticed. At the time, Islam was becoming the target of many intellectuals within the Ottoman Empire for representing the seeming backwardness that was supposed to explain the Muslim world’s comparative weakness vis-à-vis West—where the influence of religion in the political sphere had been at least partially sidelined. In response to such arguments, Afghani suggested that the problem lay not in Islam itself but rather in the traditionalism and conservatism into which it had fallen, and which gave a different taste to it according to where it was practiced in the world. This state of affairs, he contended, was at the root of the increasing fragmentation and divisions which plagued the unity of the Islamic world and weakened it in the face of the European challenge. In his view, only by stripping Islam of the numerous innovations and traditions in which it had been embedded since the emergence of various theological schools from the ninth century onwards could superficial differences between Muslims disappear. Purifying Islam of the unnecessary dogma that Sunni theologians had “corrupted” it with over several centuries was thus key to making the concept of Umma, or Islamic unity, more relevant. More united and therefore stronger, Muslims throughout the world would see their energies liberated and would find resources within their own civilization to help them face the threat of Western domination. What Afghani eventually sought was to reform Islam by advocating a return to the practice of the salaf (the “Great Ancestors” or “Rightly Guided Caliphs” who succeeded the Prophet Muhammad) at a time when the Islamic community was strongly united—hence the name given to the movement of Islamic reformism which he launched, Salafiyya or Salafism.2

  Jamal al-Din al-Afghani’s activism managed to instil enthusiasm for his pan-Islamic project and his reformist ambitions among the Muslim masses, particularly in India and Egypt, where he was active in struggling against British occupation. His advocacy also provided people in the Middle East and parts of Asia with a militant form of Islam which came to assume a strong political dimension—hence the use of the term “political Islam” to describe the subsequent rise of a myriad of politico-religious Islamic movements across the region. If Afghani brought the flag of Islamic liberation to the Muslim masses, it was nonetheless his prominent student and disciple, the Egyptian Muhammed Abduh (1849–1905), who took on the task of laying down the ideological foundations of the Salafiyya movement. More concerned with intellectual matters and education than with politics, Abduh was very active in trying to demonstrate the compatibility of Islam and much of the knowledge and technology that had allowed the West to reach its unprecedented might. In his view, the key to Europe’s success lay in the way in which the Renaissance and Enlightenment had managed to bring forward “reason” as a main driver behind the philosophy guiding Western policies. If rationalism had allowed Europe to make considerable technological progress, most notably through the development of education in the field of science, then the Islamic world should also strive to make religion compatible with reason.

  In this respect, Abduh sought to revive the legacy of the late Mutazilite theologians Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina who had, in the medieval era, attempted to introduce reason as a way to interpret Islam and its scriptures in an effort to reconcile religion with Greek philosophy. Developing and updating their arguments, Abduh contended that revelation could not be opposed to reason since the latter would remain in harmony with God’s word as long as knowledge was reached beyond doubt. The ideological and practical consequences of the Islamic reformer’s “neo-Mutazilism”3 were profoundly significant as they meant that any technological or intellectual progress made on the basis of harmony between revelation and reason would conform to Islamic principles and thus could not be charged with heresy. Concretely, this signified, for instance, a revival of interest in the Muslim world in the study of science and philosophy, subjects long considered “un-Islamic”. Crucially, this new kind of “Islamic rationalism” was deliberately used by Abduh as an argument with which to oppose Western concepts such as secularism—in essence, a critique of religion’s rationality. In many ways, reforming Islam from within was thus a means by which the entire Islamic community could tackle with indigenous tools the challenges of modernity.

  Theologically, the consequences of Abduh’s thought were also no less significant, for they came to represent the most significant challenge to the religious status quo that had dominated Islam since the ninth century. Since that time Islam had become engrained in a web of innovations introduced by various Sunni theologians who asked their Muslim followers to follow taqlid (emulation), not ijtihad (rational interpretation). Their fundamental opposition to the use of reason to interpret the Quran’s “hidden meaning” was considered by both Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammed Abduh as one of the sources behind the Muslim world’s backwardness at the time. What the “Islamic reformers” advocated, therefore, was a reopening of the doors of ijtihad, which would allow individuals across the Islamic community to rationally interpret the Quran’s “hidden meaning” on matters related to the modern world.4 This meant, however, that followers of Abduh and Afghani would be violently opposed by the local ulama (the religious establishment) who viewed the project of stripping Islam of its innovations as a direct challenge to their authority in the Muslim community. Despite the ulama’s fierce opposition, however, the “Islamic reformism” of Abduh and Afghani unleashed a wave of intellectual dynamism across the Middle East which naturally reached late Ottoman Syria during the 1880s and 1890s.

  Syria was perhaps one of the best places in the Middle East to offer a listening ear to the teachings of the Salafiyya movement. Throughout the thirteenth century Damascus had indeed been the home of Ibn Taymiyya, one of the most prolific scholars (or ulama) in Islamic history, whose insistence on the need for a greater role for ijtihad in applying the early teachings of Islam would profoundly influence Muhammed Abduh and his Salafi followers. Often seen as “the intellectual ancestor of salafism,”5 Ibn Taymiyya argued with passion that the innovations ascribed to Islam by various theological schools betrayed tawhid—the uniqueness of God. For instance, he considered it a polytheistic practice for Sufis—a mystical branch of Sunni Islam—to seek a saint’s intercession when, in his view, God alone should be worshipped. What this medieval Syrian scholar unambiguously sought was to return Islam to its “pure” foundations and to the original sources of Islamic religion: the Quran and the Sunnah (“Prophetic traditions”). On this basis, he strongly denied the validity of taqlid as a principle of jurisprudence, since in his view it only encouraged the multiplication of innovations in religion. Instead, he called on religious scholars to embrace ijtihad by pronouncing legal rulings based on the interpretation of scripture. This did not mean, however, that Ibn Taymiyya sought a greater role for reason in Islamic theology. Instead, he vowed to subordinate its use to a literalist interpretation of revelation—a strand of his thought which was partially unsuccessful in his lifetime but profoundly inspired the rise of the Wahhabiya movement in late eighteenth century Saudi Arabia.6 At any rate, the medieval Syrian scholar’s advocacy of a return to the practice of th
e salaf as a means to purify Islam was embraced by Muhammed Abduh and his Salafi followers who took on the task of reviving at least parts of Ibn Taymiyya’s legacy.

  Rediscovered first by the Wahhabis at the end of the eithteenth century and then by Islamic reformers in Egypt and Iraq during the 1870s, the writings of the medieval Syrian scholar quickly spread through Damascus where the memory of his stay had died down over the centuries. In the Syrian capital, Ibn Taymiyya’s teachings and writings were revived by Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi (1807–83). A hero of the resistance against French occupation of Algeria, Jazairi later went to Syria from where, in the footsteps of Afghani and Abduh, he encouraged the local Muslims to seek the reform of Islam and achieve progress in order to fight Western imperialism. While he insisted on the harmony between rational knowledge and revelation, Jazairi also embraced a literalist interpretation of Sharia (Islamic law). According to the researcher David Commins, who studied in great detail the emergence of the Salafiyya movement in late Ottoman Syria, it was precisely Jazairi’s own union of scripturalism with reason which would later become the hallmark of Syrian Salafi reformism.7 In Jazairi’s footsteps, other Damascene reformers such as Abd al-Razzaq al-Bittar, Tahir al-Jazairi, Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi and Salim Bukhari all proceeded to a selective revival of Ibn Taymiyya’s thought.

  While the medieval Syrian jurist certainly took them as a source of inspiration, they nonetheless fiercely rejected some of his views. In the framework of the peculiar socio-religious environment in which the Damascene reformers operated throughout the end of the nineteenth century—marked by the predominance of Sufi orders in religious life and the importance of religious minorities in Syria—Ibn Taymiyya’s controversial rulings on these matters were bound to be unpopular. Often hailed as the “spirit of resistance” against the Mongol siege of Damascus in 1300, he sanctioned takfir (excommunication from Islam) and, as a consequence, jihad (holy struggle) against the “unbeliever” Muslim regimes set up by the Mongol invaders of Syria—who, because they were declared kafir (infidel), were now considered to be outside Islam, which meant that they could be killed. The Alawi, Druze and Christian minorities living in Syria were also targeted by this orthodox Sunni theologian. But it was for Sufism that Ibn Taymiyya reserved his harshest critiques. He considered, in particular, the almost mystic character of Sufi practices, such as seeking the intercession of saints and visiting tombs, as utterly “un-Islamic”.8 Several centuries onwards, however, the size of religious minorities had grown and Sufism had become a popular practice in Syria. This greatly encouraged nineteenth century representatives of the Syrian Salafi camp to support, in their overwhelming majority, peaceful coexistence with religious minorities. Also, even though Syrian Salafists regularly denounced the mystic dimension of Sufism, its very legitimacy within Syrian society was rarely questioned or criticized—with the exception of Abd al-Hamid al-Zahrawi.9 Perhaps most importantly the Damascene reformists never condoned Ibn Taymiyya’s tendency to practice takfir and jihad against governments judged “infidel” and therefore “outside Islam”.10