Ashes of Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria Page 4
The “Islamic populists” had shown all the influence they could exert. In a clear break with the past practices of earlier jamiat, they had managed to politicize social and gender issues with the ultimate aim of influencing political outcomes. While they did not directly enter the realm of politics, claiming instead to be preoccupied solely by the defence of religious values, they started to enjoy a substantial political role. Their influence would greatly affect the emergence of a Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which, despite what its name may suggest, was not a direct import from Egypt but represented instead the merger of several of the aforementioned Islamic societies thriving in Mandatory Syria.
2
ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN POST-INDEPENDENCE SYRIA (1946–1963)
While the Salafiyya movement’s spill-over into Syria played a great role in building up the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s intellectual foundations, the rise of Islamic societies throughout the 1930s and 1940s provided the political and organizational basis upon which the Islamic movement was to structure its actions. Thus the birth of Syria’s Ikhwan in 1946 was very much the product of the country’s particular socio-religious and political landscape. Such adaptability to local contexts would be a crucial feature of the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood as the organization came to be profoundly shaped by the moderate legacy of the Salafiyya movement’s inroads into the country. The moderation and pragmatism of its historical leaders, Mustapha al-Sibai and Issam al-Attar, combined with the emergence of parliamentary democracy in post-independence Syria, are also factors explaining the Muslim Brotherhood’s early commitment to peaceful participation in the Syrian political sphere.
Studying the political behavour and ideological rhetoric of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood between 1946 and 1963 will make clear that, for all the radicalization of the Islamic movement throughout the 1970s, the organization was in its origins a peaceful group committed to the principles of constitutionalism and political liberalism. It is also through the lens of the Brotherhood’s moderate legacy, as illustrated in this section, that one can understand current Ikhwani claims that, despite radical episodes, the organization is now back to its “basics”. Primarily political in its aims, the Brotherhood was to become violent only at the very height of the Ikhwan-Ba’ath confrontation, between late 1979 and 1982.
Learning the game of politics at the dawn of Syria’s independence from France, the Syrian Brotherhood quickly professionalized its tactics and displayed a surprising degree of ideological flexibility—supporting political liberalism and an “Islamicized” version of socialism. Ultimately, however, the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was bound to remain part of the wider Ikhwani framework which tied it to its Egyptian founders. The contradictions which would emerge out of such a situation, particularly when the Syrian Ikhwan were faced with the dilemma of whether or not to support the policies of Nasser—an Egyptian leader widely popular in the “Arab street” yet a major persecutor of the Egyptian Brotherhood—came to the fore in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Such weakness would, in turn, pave the way for the growing influence exercised over Syrian politics by the Ikhwan’s main political competitor: the Ba’ath Party.
Egyptian roots
While the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was founded on socioeconomic and religious grounds specific to mid-1940s Syria, the group looked in its early years towards the original Egyptian movement for both intellectual and organizational inspiration. Here, a glance back at the historical and ideological circumstances surrounding the creation of the original Muslim Brotherhood will help to properly understand the underpinnings upon which its Syrian branch would build its activism.
The Muslim Brotherhood, or Jamiat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin (also referred to simply as Ikhwan), was founded in Egypt in 1928 with the aim of becoming both the explicit political extension of the local religious clubs, or jamiat, and the intellectual heir of the Salafiyya movement. Thus the movement was openly dedicated to reviving the influence of Islam in Muslim societies. Hassan al-Banna, its founder, looked upon the earlier Salafi reformists as influential sources of inspiration. While he admired Jamal al-Din al-Afghani’s political activism and call for a revival of Islam, he was also seduced by Muhammed Abduh’s advocacy of a return to the tradition of the salaf as part of an effort to strengthen Islam from within. For Hassan al-Banna, if Muslims could regain the purity of faith which characterized the Prophet’s generation and gave it strength, the Umma could once again successfully face the challenge of foreign domination.
All non-political efforts had to be concentrated on Muslim education as a first step towards the “moral re-armament”1 of society. At a time when foreign cultural influence was gaining ground in Egypt, particularly through the British occupation, the Muslim Brotherhood’s insistence on reviving Islamic values gave the movement a puritanical and conservative outlook which had not been characteristic of earlier Salafists but had gradually come to be embraced by later Islamic reformers such as Rashid Rida and Muhib al-Din al-Khatib. These two scholars were to exert much influence on the intellectual framework adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood as both sought to revive Ibn Taymiyya’s literalism and call for jihad. So the doctrine put forward by the Ikhwan merged many strands of thought found in the dynamic legacy left by the Salafiyya movement, summed up by the slogan: “God is our purpose, the Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our path and martyrdom for the sake of God is our noblest wish.”2
Intellectually, what set Hassan al-Banna apart from his Salafist predecessors was his insistence on the comprehensiveness of Islam. The Islamic message, for him, was one that embraced all aspects of life. Not only did it obviously have a religious meaning, it also contained teachings which needed to be implemented in the social, economic, educational, cultural and political fields. In each area, from the individual to the public sphere, Islam had something to say which, if properly listened to, would eventually strengthen the Muslim community by giving rise to nizam Islami—a “true” Islamic order. In addition, Hassan al-Banna’s comprehensive view of Islam—and his own personal background as a Sufi converted to the Salafism preached by Abduh and Afghani—meant that he naturally came to embrace both the spirituality of Sufism and the reformist impulse found in Salafism. According to Kamal al-Hel-bawy, a prominent Egyptian Brother, it was precisely Hassan al-Banna’s inclusive vision of Islam that made his organization so appealing to millions of young Muslims first in Egypt and then across the region. The Ikhwan’s historical founder himself is reported to have described his movement as combining at once “a salafiyya message, a Sunni way, a Sufi truth, a sports club, a cultural-educational union, an economic company and a social idea.”3
This all-encompassing approach to Islam also made the Muslim Brotherhood a deeply political organization as, in order to implement the socioeconomic and cultural programme it had set out, power had to be achieved. The Muslim Brotherhood’s early political activism set it apart from a Salafiyya movement which, if political in its aims, was essentially intellectual in its means.4 Directly entering the political sphere was no longer considered a mere political right; it had become a religious duty. In Hassan al-Banna’s words, indeed, “a Muslim will never become a real Muslim if he is not a politician and has a view for the affairs of his people.”5 The Brotherhood’s early political activism led the researcher Paul Salem to characterize the organization as a “movement dedicated to defending and reasserting the place of Islam in society through educational and political means.”6 It took on the task, for instance, of exerting pressure on successive Egyptian monarchs, King Fuad and later King Farouk, in directions thought to be in accordance with the message of Islam.
By 1939, over two decades after its creation, the Egyptian Ikhwan had grown so rapidly in strength and influence that one of the movement’s best analysts, Richard Mitchell, would describe the Brotherhood as “one of the most important political contestants on the Egyptian scene”.7
While at the time not formally a political party—its founder rejected the idea of party politics—the Ikhwan were still an organization capable of exerting such a degree of influence on Egyptian politics that the government decided to outlaw them in December 1948. The confrontational dynamic then unleashed would eventually encourage a member of the Ikhwan to carry out the assassination of the Egyptian prime minister, which would in turn lead to a fierce governmental response culminating with the assassination of Hassan al-Banna, followed by a long period of deep tension between Egyptian authorities and the Ikhwan.
One reason for the increasing perception of the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to the Egyptian establishment was its organizational capability to mobilize thousands of people in mass protests across the streets of Cairo. More than just an intellectual trend or a jamia with socio-educational aims, the Ikhwan had, throughout the 1930s, become a true social movement backed by genuine popular support and with clear political goals. At a time when established political parties were often composed of Westernized elites, the message the Ikhwan strove to convey appealed to the Egyptian people through the perceived authenticity of their message: “Islam is the solution”. The organization argued that, in order to face the cultural and socioeconomic challenges posed by the West, Egyptian Muslims had to restore vital values, taking as a starting point the original traditions found in Islam. The straightforwardness of the Islamic message was appealing to many as the Ikhwan’s constituency was largely made up of the educated middle class comprising professionals, civil servants, artisans and petty traders. By linking traditional concerns—such as the enforcement of Islamic law and public morality—with contemporary national issues—such as independence and development—the Ikhwan managed to put forward a seemingly indigenous platform advocating, among other things, the rejection of Western values—then linked in the minds of many with foreign domination and the extravagant lifestyle of Egyptian elites.8
The Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood
Owing its name to its Egyptian sister, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was born out of the personal ties and shared intellectual sensibilities developed by Syrian Islamic scholars with Hassan al-Banna during their religious studies at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. In 1933, Mustapha al-Sibai, a young Islamic militant from Homs, and Mohammed al-Hamid,9 one of his classmates originally from Hama, went to the Egyptian capital in order to continue their study of Islamic law. There, they befriended the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, gained extensive experience of the organization and even came to occupy influential positions within the Egyptian Brotherhood.10 Upon their return to Syria, they strove to unify the several jamiat which had sprung up throughout the country during the 1920s and 1930s. The first congress gathering these religious societies together was held in 1937, but Mustapha al-Sibai waited until 1945 before giving the platform the official title of “Muslim Brotherhood”. Reflecting upon this with a British diplomat during the summer of 1946, the founder of the Syrian branch of the Ikhwan explained: “various Muslim youth organizations had been inaugurated in Syria since 1936 but, in order that the French might not become alarmed, different names were given to the organizations in different part of the country; now that the reason for camouflaging the movement has disappeared with the cessation of French control, it has been decided to combine all of them in one organization, with the title of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin.”11
The first congress inaugurating the formal gathering of these Islamic societies into Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood was held in Aleppo in 1945. The northern metropolis had been a major centre of Islamic activism throughout the 1930s, most notably through the work of Dar al-Arqam, a local jamia dedicated to the promotion of Islam’s all-encompassing role in Syrian society by carrying out cultural, sporting and social activities. According to an account given by one of its former members who would later rise to assume leadership of the Syrian Brotherhood, Ali Sadreddine al-Bayanouni, Dar al-Arqam (“The Home of Arqam”) could be distinguished from the Damascus-based al-Gharra by its open-mindedness and progressive spirit. “Dar al-Arqam was an Aleppine Islamic society which welcomed moderates and was open to various practices: it represented an ideology of the ‘middle way’, if you will, one consistent with the spirit of the ‘Aleppo branch’ of the Ikhwan, and which helps to distinguish from similar but less progressive organizations in Hama and Deir ez-Zoor, for instance,”12 Ali Sadreddine al-Bayanouni explained.
Organizations similar to Dar al-Arqam—though, they might have slightly differed in their ideological and religious orientations, as Bayanouni suggested—flourished during the late 1930s throughout the country under the name of Shabbab Muhammad (“Muhammed’s Youth”). When all of these jamiat merged under the umbrella of the “Syrian Muslim Brotherhood”, they immediately provided the Ikhwani organization with an already constituted social base. Another advantage was that the Syrian Brotherhood was able to thoroughly structure its work and co-ordinate its actions in the country’s various regions by relying relatively quickly on a clear hierarchy inspired by the Egyptian Ikhwan. From the outset, the Syrian organization worked on the following model: a Comptroller General would head an Executive Committee voted in by a wider Consultative Body (Majlis al-Shura) representative of the organization’s regional and ideological diversity. The headquarters were located in Damascus and regional offices and sub-branches would ensure the collective yet hierarchical nature of the Ikhwan’s work.13 However, while the Syrian Brotherhood directly benefited from the organizational lessons drawn from the original Egyptian Ikhwan, the necessarily heterogeneous nature of the Syrian organization—both regionally and ideologically—would ultimately mean that any attempt on the part of one sub-group to seize the leadership over the others would lead to internal crisis (see Chapter 5).
The Syrian branch of the Ikhwan also looked to its Egyptian sister for ideological inspiration. Like Hassan al-Banna before him, Mustapha al-Sibai claimed that his programme was based on “trying to revive Islam from its current petrifaction” through “social reform” and the “liberation of Arab and Islamic people from foreign domination”.14 The Syrian leader also embraced his Egyptian mentor’s conception of Islam as a comprehensive concept, seen as embodying “all aspects of life, political and social”.15 Islam—its teachings, law and culture—was here again perceived as the inspiration from which all socioeconomic and political reforms should be derived.
The common ideological background and striking organizational similarities between the two organizations did not mean, however, that the Syrian Ikhwan would merely be a representative in Damascus of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, for the two groups retained their autonomy in two very distinct sociopolitical environments. Of course, as Mustapha al-Sibai confessed to a British diplomat, “the aims of the Ikhwan are similar in all countries and they co-operate on all political and social questions, keep in close contact and exchange information.” But he also insisted that, even so, “the Ikhwan of Syria is administratively and financially independent and receives no instruction or orders from other organizations with the same name in Egypt or elsewhere.”16
In addition, the discourse and practice of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood at times also differed from Hassan al-Banna’s original tone. For instance, since Syria’s sizeable religious minorities—the country’s Christians, Jews, Alawis and Druzes—had always been wary of the political influence Sunni Islamic organizations were capable of wielding, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood tried from the outset to incorporate elements of moderation into its discourse. It stressed that “the People of the Book [the Christians and Jews] are entitled to protection and can expect to live in security under the laws of Islam”17 and that “religion is brotherhood” while “sectarianism is enmity”.18 Similarly, owing to the Sufi background of many Syrian ulama, the Salafi-oriented intellectual founders of the Syrian Ikhwan strove to put forward a Sufi-Salafi synthesis which would set theological differences among members aside in order to focus on social and political work. Thus, while Mustaph
a al-Sibai was at times nicknamed the “small Ibn Taymiyya”,19 mainly for his critiques of Sufism, he is also remembered today for having been a relatively compromising figure working for Sufi-Salafi unity inside the movement. For the founder of the Syrian Ikhwan, Islam was “‘amal [work and action] not jadal [controversial argumentation]”.20 This was also a feature shared by another prominent figure inside the movement, Muhammed al-Hamid based in Hama, of whom Said Hawwa, the future ideologue of resistance to the Ba’ath regime, said that he “believed that in order to stop the ridda ([apostasy]), Muslims must join hands despite their many controversies; and although he was a Hanafi Sufi, he had always declared his readiness to put his hand in the hand of the fiercest Salafi to stop this apostasy.”21 The prestige gained by Muhammed al-Hamid within the Brotherhood’s ranks was to embody the Syrian Ikhwan’s unique synthesis of the Sufi revivalist tradition, followed by many Brothers from Hama and Aleppo, and of traditional Salafism, present mainly but not exclusively in Damascus.22
It seems clear that the early pragmatism displayed by the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood with regards to Sufism and religious minorities was the result of the particular intellectual history which shaped the emergence of the Salafiyya movement in late Ottoman Syria. Damascus Salafists, such as Abdel Qadir al-Jazairi, always stressed the importance of building up healthy relations with religious minorities in Syria as well as with the popular Sufi sheikhs.23 The ideas he put forward and the ideological flexibility he displayed gave rise, in the early 1900s, to a generation of Damascene Salafists who, like Muhammed al-Mubarak and Issam al-Attar, were to lead the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood into moderation throughout the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s (see Chapter 5).