Ashes of Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria Read online

  Such pragmatism, combined with the relatively open political environment which emerged after Independence, meant that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would enter the political game and strive to challenge its competitors openly by forming a party and running for elections. This was a step that the Egyptian organization was not ready to take for while it tried to exert political influence on the rulers of the day, it did not yet wish to form a political party and continued to occasionally resort to violent activities.24 In contrast, the Syrian Ikhwan proclaimed from the outset their commitment to a democratic form of government. In line with the Salafist tradition of Islamic reformism, Ma’ruf al-Dawalibi and Muhammed al-Mubarak, two politicians close to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, justified the inclusion of democratic practices in an Islamic state through the modernist postulate that Islam does not ordain a specific form of government but only lays down general principles which people are entitled to implement through ijtihad in accordance with the changing circumstances of their place and time. They insisted that the emergence of an Islamic state would not mean the advent of a theocracy as, while the elected ruler should indeed be bound by the rules of Islam, the real source of political authority lay in the bay’a (oath of allegiance) to the community. The political authorities should, in turn, consult this community through the mechanism of shura (consultation).25

  In this context, the establishment in Syria of an Islamist party which would compete in the democratic sphere was a natural development which also grew from the pro-active views of the Ikwhan’s Syrian leader, Mustapha al-Sibai, for whom “Islam teaches tawakkul—reliance upon God as the first principle of hope and action—not tawakul—fatalistic indifference and passive resignation.”26 By insisting on the indigenous Islamic roots of democracy, the Syrian Brothers were making it ideologically acceptable for the Ikhwan to directly enter the political game and participate in parliamentary democracy. As the researcher Stephen Humphreys put it, what at the time singled out the Syrian Ikhwan from their Islamic counterparts in the rest of the Arab world was that they were “militantly fundamentalist in tone but distinctly modernist in content.”27

  Competing for power in Syria’s parliamentary democracy

  A brief glance at the historical circumstances surrounding the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s emergence as a political party will contribute to our understanding of the political platform put forward by the Ikhwan in the mid-1940s and their electoral successes. At the time of the organization’s creation, Syria had just achieved independence from Mandatory France. Parliamentary sovereignty had been restored and the country was presided over by Shukri al-Quwwatli of the National Bloc, which had led the nationalist struggle against the French.

  The National Bloc was heavily dominated by urban notables and rich landowners wishing to carry out a liberal reformist agenda; this, according to author Philip Khoury, had the consequence of hindering the growth of an organized urban proletariat and impeding the emancipation of an increasingly restless peasantry.28 At first acclaimed for its leadership of the struggle against the French, the National Bloc quickly became seen as “widely corrupt and inefficient”,29 according to a foreign observer at the time, giving rise to a new generation of political parties wishing to tap into the disaffected urban and rural masses. This, combined with the seeming inability of the political establishment to deal effectively with the creation of the state of Israel in May 1948—reflected in Syria’s defeat in the subsequent war—provided fertile ground for the rise of more radical political parties.

  Leftist, nationalist and religious trends quickly developed. Akram al-Hawrani mobilized the peasantry in his home town of Hama where his Arab Socialist Party rapidly became an influential actor at the local and then the national level. Michel Aflaq and Salah Eddine al-Bittar, for their part, founded the Ba’ath (“renaissance”) Party which originally centered its platform around the idea of Arab unity before giving it a populist and socialist spin by allying with Akram al-Hawrani’s forces in February 1953. While the Ba’ath’s socialist rhetoric was challenged by Khalid Bakdash’s Syrian Communist Party and Antun Sa’adah’s Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the pro-Palestinian rhetoric it displayed, which stemmed naturally from its Arabist ideology, found itself in competition with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s harsh attacks on Israel and plea for Islamic unity.

  In that context, it is not surprising that the National Party—a newly established political platform stemming from the National Bloc—was challenged by a wide array of radical parties such as the Ikhwan and the Ba’ath in July 1947, when the first parliamentary elections since Syria gained full independence were held. Still in a state of genesis, the Muslim Brotherhood decided to join forces with the Rabitat al-Ulama (Union of Ulama), a group of religious scholars committed to implementing a conservative social agenda and opposed to Shukri al-Quwwatli’s leadership of the country.30 Although the success of the alliance remained modest, with only three candidates elected, it nonetheless seemed to represent a sufficiently threatening political challenge to the existing establishment given that the government subsequently dissolved the Union and transferred its property to the Waqfs (religious endowments) administration.

  In addition, the authorities decided to temporarily suspend the publication of al-Manar, the newspaper edited by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.31 This particularly repressive measure against the Ikhwan was representative of the government’s concerns over the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood’s popularity in Syria. While al-Manar had been a fairly successful newspaper from the outset, it had, by mid-1946, become popular to the extent that, according to a British diplomat at the time, the demand for it was even “greater than the supply” and its circulation was “larger than that of any other daily newspaper published in Damascus”.32 Beyond the Ikhwan’s growing popularity, as shown by its fairly good electoral showing for such a new party, the July 1947 election to Parliament of three members of the Muslim Brotherhood also sent an important message to the rest of the world: the power of Islam’s political message would ultimately make its way through elections to the ultimate benefit of the Ikhwan. As Mustapha al-Sibai proudly stated in a telegram he sent to Hassan al-Banna, the Syrian elections were “the first time official representatives of the Islamic idea are elected to parliament in any Islamic or Arab states”.33

  While the elections saw the consolidation of the National Party’s power, an internal split within the political establishment emerged. This came to a denouement when politicians opposing Shukri al-Quwwatli’s leadership decided to join the People’s Party, an economically liberal Aleppo-based political grouping which would later exert a significant influence on Syrian politics. The internal wrangling inside the incumbent party, coupled with repeated student strikes and the defeat in the 1948 war against Israel, quickly led to a severe deterioration of the political atmosphere, leading the government to resign in November 1948. A few months later, in March 1949, Colonel Husni az-Zaim mounted a coup. Az-Zaim disbanded all political parties—including, in May 1949, the Ikhwan—and implemented a series of secularist reforms before he was ousted from power in August 1949 by Colonel Sami Hinnawi, who promised to restore civilian government and parliamentary democracy in Syria.

  Elections to the Constituent Assembly were held in November 1949 in which the People’s Party made a strong showing. Radical parties such as the Ba’ath and the Ikhwan also scored some success—gaining one and three seats respectively. This was also the first occasion on which the Muslim Brotherhood had run tickets on its own political platform, led by Mustapha al-Sibai, who was elected to Parliament alongside his colleagues Muhammed al-Mubarak and Arif al-Taraqji. Candidates affiliated with the Ikhwan but not officially part of the movement—such as Ma’aruf al-Dawalibi in Aleppo and Subhi al-‘Umari in Damascus—were also successful. At that time, the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence, while remaining weaker than that of established parties such as the People’s Party, was nonetheless significant enough that two of its supporters, al-Dawalibi and al
-Mubarak, were given ministerial posts in the December 1949 government led by Khalid al-Azm—becoming Minister of National Economy and Minister of Public Works respectively.34 That prominent members of the Ikhwan became ministers also showed the extent to which the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was a political force willing to display pragmatism, engage in coalitions and make compromises to exert influence on Syria’s political life.

  Defending Islam with pragmatism

  Often portrayed by foreign observers as “religious fanatics”,35 members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood were in fact quite prepared to show pragmatism towards existing political authorities and embrace compromise as long as they felt that their interests and values were being advanced. Having agreed to join the December 1949 government, the Ikhwan made their pragmatism even clearer a few months later, in February 1950, when debates were initiated on the drafting of a new constitution at Syria’s Constituent Assembly. A special committee had been set up to draft the constitution, made up of thirty-three members, chaired by People’s Party leader Nazim al-Qudsi. One issue became particularly controversial: that of the relationship between religion and state. The Muslim Brotherhood, under the banner of the Islamic Socialist Front and in the person of Mustapha al-Sibai, who was on the committee, insisted that the constitution should enshrine Islam as the “state religion”—a demand that earned the support of many of Syria’s ulama. Aware of the sensitive nature of such an initiative for Syria’s sizeable religious minorities, Mustapha al-Sibai strove to emphasize the non-sectarian dimension of his plea. While insisting that Islam had the highest respect for Christianity and would not interfere in matters of personal status, he also argued that, should it be named the state religion, “our Parliament, deputies, laws and way of life will all remain but they will be reinforced by loftiness of spirit, purity of hand, moral probity and human nobility,” concluding that “the only reason for establishing a state religion is to colour the state with a spiritual, moral hue so that regulations and laws will be carried out under the impetus of a deep, spiritual driving force.”36

  Mustapha al-Sibai must have proved quite convincing to the special committee, which eventually put forward a draft constitution stating, in its Article 3 that “Islam is the state religion; other divine religions and religious minorities will be respected.” But when the draft reached the whole Constituent Assembly, debates on the subject became so violent that the government temporarily banned public discussion on the matter, fearing total chaos. When the matter was discussed again in Parliament on 5 September, continued opposition from most other political blocs eventually convinced Mustapha al-Sibai to negotiate a compromise. In exchange for accepting that Islam would not be considered the state religion, the Muslim Brotherhood managed to introduce a clause which made Islam the religion of the head of state and introduced fiqh—Islamic jurisprudence—as the main source of legislation. On the whole, the Muslim Brotherhood had fought with “noisy eloquence”,37 noted a British diplomat at the time, and had managed to give Islam a special role in the constitution which was subsequently approved by the Syrian Parliament. For the researcher Joshua Teitelbaum, this episode proved that “even religious fanatics can learn to be tactically patient and skilful.”38 It also showed the extent to which the Muslim Brotherhood had quickly become a significant actor in Syria’s political life.

  While Mustapha al-Sibai hailed the new Syrian constitution as an example of what the constitutions of Islamic states should be, and proudly defended the “Islamic element”39 that he had managed to introduce into it, the pragmatism he had displayed did not please everybody. Syria’s ulama, in particular, were outraged that the Muslim Brotherhood—which they had supported in the preceding elections—had so easily given up on the core demand of making Islam the state religion. According to Thomas Pierret, an expert on political Islam in Syria, the divergence between the ulama and the Ikhwan was not ideological, as both keenly defended the idea of making Islam the state religion, but tactical. While the former were profoundly attached to the Islamic values they professed every day in mosques, the latter had gradually become professional politicians, ready to engage in compromises if it advanced their interests and the values they claimed to defend.40 In other words, the Muslim Brotherhood and in particular its leader, Mustapha al-Sibai, were “accused of being more interested in politics than in religion”,41 a British diplomat noted at the time.

  The political activism displayed by the Ikhwan during the constitutional debates of 1950 was not, however, limited to granting Islam a formal role in the political system. Many members of the Muslim Brotherhood had taken part in the activities of the Islamic jamiat which, in the 1920s and 1930s, struck a populist tone by vehemently asking for a return to Islamic values against foreign cultural invasion. It was therefore only natural that the same populism would become a feature of the Syrian Ikhwan. Nawal al-Sibai, the niece of the first leader of the Syrian Ikhwan, remembered, for instance, her uncle’s fierce public denunciations of the poems of Nizar Qabbani.42 Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Syrian poet had published a series of romantic verses making explicit references to a woman’s body, drawing the kind of outrage from conservative Damascene society on which the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood would be quick to capitalize. In the same vein, a political officer at the British Embassy in Damascus reported another instance of the kind of conservative populism practiced by the Muslim Brotherhood. “The Ikhwan al-Muslimeen have sent a written protest to the legation against the publication in Britannia & Eve of an illustrated article by Matania Muhammed, which shows the Prophet regarding Adam and Eve, the latter being assumed to represent Mohammed’s wife and therefore being improperly dressed”, read the cable. “Letters have also been written to the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister.” “A Damascus notable has challenged Matania to a duel and applied for a visa to England for this purpose,”43 the cable from the British Embassy in Damascus concluded with thinly veiled irony.

  Unsurprisingly, the Muslim Brotherhood struck a similarly populist tone on the question of Palestine, vowing to fight “bloodily and cruelly until our country [Palestine] is restored to us.”44 Early on, the Syrian Ikhwan had displayed a particular kind of militancy when, upon its official creation, an article published in the organization’s main newspaper, al-Manar, had “openly advocated that the Arabs should put into operation the secret decisions of the Bludan Conference of the Arab League and should resort to force.”45 It seems that the Syrian Brotherhood went as far as taking matters into its own hands. A political officer at the British Embassy in Damascus thus reported that, in the national debate on what should be done by the Arabs to recover Palestine, “foremost among the propagandists were the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen.” As an example, he stated that following a ten-day trip by the organization’s leader, Mustapha al-Sibai, in northern Syria, “to preach and inflame the youth of the country”,46 an “Arab Liberation Army” had been set up and tasked with recruiting volunteers to fight against Israel.

  But beyond the Islamic rhetoric stemming from the Ikhwan’s background, one could also interpret the activism displayed by the Ikhwan on the issue of Palestine as being directed at the political competition it faced on the subject from the Ba’ath Party. As a prominent defender of Arab nationalism, the Ba’ath also wished to show its pro-Palestinian credentials to a Syrian population increasingly disappointed with the way established political elites dealt with the issue.47

  “‘Islamic socialism’: a Muslim drink in a Marxist cup”?

  Besides playing up the issues of Palestine and the role of Islam in Syrian society, the Muslim Brotherhood also came to realize the importance of the so-called “social question” which had been raised in the early 1940s by the influential peasant leader Akram al-Hawrani. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the radical parties that emerged on Syria’s political scene all strove to emphasize their commitment to a fairer social bargain which would benefit the lower middle classes frustrated by a growing divide betw
een Syria’s most privileged and the impoverished. This new generation of political parties incorporated ideological elements into their platform meant to appeal to the then-revolutionary mood which was gradually seizing Syria’s urban populations, each on its own terms. While the Syrian Communist Party naturally emphasized its communist ideology, the Ba’ath Party insisted on its own brand of Arab socialism and the Syrian National Socialist Party put forward a national-socialist ideology. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood had also tainted its discourse with a degree of left-wing rhetoric, putting up candidates for election under the platform of the “Islamic Socialist Front” and pleading by the same token for the advent of an “Islamic socialism”.

  The doctrine of “Islamic socialism”—put forward by Mustapha al-Sibai in his Ishtirakiyyat al-Islam (“The socialism of Islam”) published in 1959—represented the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s first attempt at articulating a comprehensive ideology constitutive of a specifically “Islamic way” distinct from the values of the West and the East. For the Syrian Ikhwani leader, who subsequently became known as the “Red Sheikh”,48 true social reform could only be implemented through a framework based on Islamic teachings which would justify policies such as land reform. “The principles of Islam, our social situation and the obligation placed upon us by our religion to wipe out oppression and give human dignity to the peasants—all this renders the limitation of landed property legal in the eyes of the law and makes it one of the duties of the state.”49 In other words, what Mustapha al-Sibai sought was to emphasize the “socialist” aspects of Islam by portraying Muslim religion as a system of values that shared with socialism the goals of establishing social equality, eliminating hunger and poverty, and fostering education and opportunities for all. For al-Sibai, there was nothing more socialist than “the socialism of the fast during the month of Ramadan”.50