16 May 2012
| In Lieu of Worshipping |
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What influence do religious figures have on Syria's ongoing uprising? By Muhammad Atef Fares
Two weeks after protests broke out last March, the president had warned the Syrian parliament against fitna (sedition) which conspirators against Syria were sowing in the Syrian people's calls for reform. "Burying sedition is a national, moral, and religious duty," President Assad said during the speech he delivered in front of the Syrian parliament on March 30. "The Holy Koran says, 'sedition is worse than killing', so all those involved intentionally or unintentionally involved in it contribute to destroying their country." In March, Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti, a prominent Islamic scholar and head of the Theology Department in the Faculty of Islamic Law at Damascus University, also urged Syrians "not be led by calls from unidentified sides trying to use mosques to incite sedition and chaos in Syria," state news agency SANA reported. However, amateur videos subsequently shot in many areas of Syria show protestors burning Bouti's books to demonstrate their disrespect for his opinions about them.
Fatal split Some pro-government religious leaders also faced pressures such as bribes and even death threats to make them change their attitudes. On October 1, Saria Hassoun, 22, son of Syria's grand mufti, Ahmad Badruddin Hassoun, was shot dead near Ibla University on the Idleb-Aleppo highway, SANA reported. On December 14, Hassoun told the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai that "factions in the opposition offered him money in order to resign" adding that "the revolutionists killed my son and they threatened to kill me because I refused to join them." Local anti-government sheikhs have also been accused of being part of the 'external plot' against Syria. Several local media sources described Sheikh Ahmad al-Sayasneh from Dera'a as a radical Islamist who tried to have Dera'a secede from Syria and establish a religious state. Confessions by "members of armed terrorist gangs" aired on state-run Syrian TV said he had declared jihad against the Syrian regime. However, Sayasneh, who was pardoned by the Syrian president, told Syrian TV he was under pressure from the terrorist gangs when he issued this fatwa (legal Islamic ruling). In a YouTube video posted in April, Louay al-Zo'bi from Dera'a, a Salafist leader of the "Believers Participate Movement", declared a fatwa requiring all Muslims to protest and support the Syrian revolution. Adnan Aaro'ur, 63, a Syrian cleric from Hama who is currently based in Riyadh, has appeared on several satellite channels speaking out openly and aggressively against the regime. Aaro'ur has become famous through these broadcasts, and many protestors have been filmed chanting his name, especially during Ramadan. Furthermore, in testimony broadcast on Syrian TV on September 16, defected Syrian Major Hussein Harmoush admitted that he received calls from Aaro'ur. While most Islamic scholars refuse foreign military intervention, a few welcome it. Recently, Aaro'ur emphatically echoed this demand, threatening to "cut out the tongues of any member of the Syrian National Council who does not call for intervention in Syria." On September 11, on his famous programme on Al-Jazeera, which has an estimated audience of 60m viewers worldwide, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, also said that he supported a no-fly zone implemented by the West.
Fanning the flames In contrast, many satellite channels based outside the country, such as Qatari Al-Jazeera or Saudi Al-Wisal, broadcast amateur videos of attacks said to be on mosques in Dera'a and other cities, including the shelling of minarets in Deir ez-Zor and Homs, and the arrests of imams (religious leaders). Such coverage has stimulated protestors' anger, particularly after the security forces' alleged assault on the Al-Rifai Mosque in Damascus during Ramadan. Pro-government sources claimed armed groups carried out the attack to incite violence. According to witnesses, some people were beaten up or shot inside the mosque, and Sheikh Osama al-Rifai, a prominent moderate preacher who has criticised the regime's handling of the uprising, was also beaten. "Most of the senior Islamic scholars are angry about the security forces' actions," a Syrian Islamic figure who recently left the country told Syria Today on condition of anonymity. Sheikh Muaz al-Khatib, a former preacher and Imam of the Umayyad mosque, has also criticised pro-regime clerics for not condemning the intensifying military assaults on protestors. "The big symbols of the religious establishment should be the umbrella that brings together the state and people to prevent bloodshed," Khatib told Reuters on August 16.
A vague role Indeed, some Salafists welcome the prominent role attributed to them. On the same day, Zo'bi told Al-Arabiya satellite channel that more than 60 percent of Muslims in Syria are Salafists, and that his group has donated over USD 3m to the opposition inside Syria. "We encourage the new national army to guard its people," Zo'bi said. "We support it with weapons and with anything else." However, some analysts minimised the role of Islamists in driving protests. "The regime wants to scare the minorities and the imperial countries from an 'Islamic danger'," journalist and writer Salameh Kaileh argued. In fact, he said, the regime's accusations of Salafism pushed young protestors to create slogans such as "Neither Salafist nor terrorist, our revolution is a youth revolution".
He added that while the Muslim Brotherhood thinks it is leading protestors, the protests are in fact "a popular uprising led by poor social groups and unemployed youth, who have never dealt with politics". |
16 May 2012
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