Will the new Syrian regime experience the same evolution as the previous regime, or will it build an internal political order that takes into account the cultural changes in Muslim societies and the aspirations of youth?
Lahouari Addi *
Will the new Syria enter post-Islamism? This photo above (the new strongman in Damascus, Ahmed Al-Charaa, receiving a delegation of Syrian Christians) bodes well. Post-Islamism recalls the evolution of political Christianity which gave birth in Europe in the 19e century to Christian democracy parties and social democrats of Christian sensibility. Comparison is not right, but the similarities are there.
The Islamists of previous years built their political project around worship (religious duties), which is not only unrealistic but contrary to the spirit of the Koran which stipulates that only God is judge of worship. Men can only judge mou'amalatesthat is, everyday profane actions.
To judge the mou'amalatesmen institute a law inspired by their culture and by social consciousness linked to a representation of the world. We will say “yes, but in Islam, Sharia is the immutable right decreed by God”. Bullshit! This thesis is that of the Western orientalists who, with the support of texts by Muslim theologians of the Middle Ages, propagated it.
The reality is that Muslim culture distinguishes between Shariaideal of divine justice for a perfect society, and the fiqhsecular religious law. There Sharia is not law; it is an ideal legal norm that men, made of twisted wood as Kant says, are incapable of achieving. Conversely, the fiqh is a positive religious right created by fouqahas based on the culture of their time. It has now fallen into disuse because it no longer corresponds to the culture of today's Muslim societies.
Islamists must adapt or disappear
The law evolves according to cultures and awareness of what is fair and what is not. If at 12e century, it seemed right to marry a little girl aged 12, today it is considered unacceptable. It is reality, history and life that require Islamists to evolve and adapt otherwise they will disappear.
This is what the post-Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan understood, who, from experience, knows that there does not exist and cannot exist a religious state. States are political constructions, and when they legitimize themselves through religion, leaders replace God to judge men, which contradicts the Koran which states that to hakimya belongs to God.
al hakimya in Arabic means to arbitrate. The referee of the football match is called in Arabic al-hakam. God is the arbiter, during the last judgment, of the differences between Muslims, Christians and Jews, but also between the different religious practices among Muslims. This word al-hakimya was misunderstood by the Pakistani Al-Mawdudi whose mother tongue is not Arabic, but Urdu. He translated it as sovereignty, thus deducing that democracy is cupboard. Western orientalists made this their own, establishing Al-Mawdudi as a theologian even though he was a journalist by training and profession.
Post-Islamism is the break with the writings of Al-Mawdudi and his student Sayyed Qotb for whom Muslim societies have fallen back into the ignorance. Qotb implicitly said that we, our parents and grandparents are no longer Muslims and that we will all go to hell! But why have these burlesque theses become popular to the point where Islam has become a political ideology?
The failure of radical Arab nationalism
The answer to this question goes back to the failure of radical Arab nationalism represented by Nasser, Boumédiène, Saddam, Assad… who, anxious to preserve their power, did not dare to initiate the theological reform advocated by the Nahda movement. or Renaissance in the 19the century. It is because there was no modern Muslim theology compatible with freedom of conscience and equality between men and women that political Islam spread.
Political Islam is the illegitimate child of Nasser, Boumédiène, Saddam, Assad… In Algeria, the FIS was the son of the FLN. This FLN which, once in power, did not dare touch theology. Boumédiène had even mobilized imams paid by the State, which is heresy, to defend the agrarian revolution. His speech was limited to verbally condemning imperialism, which is necessary but not sufficient. (This is what the Chinese have understood since 1980).
The regimes of Nasser, Boumédiène, Saddam, Assad… did not have plans to modernize society, culture and the economy. They had exploited the aspirations of the popular classes for social justice and modernity to monopolize the power that their culture considered as the spoils of war. This is the cause of the failure of Saddam and Assad. Nasser's heirs in Egypt only saved his regime by relying on the former colonial powers and Israel.
The question that arises is this: will the new Syrian regime experience the same evolution as the previous regime, or will it build an internal political order that takes into account the cultural changes of Muslim societies and the aspirations of the youth? Syria is at a crossroads: either it will follow Mawdudi and Qotb, and in 20 years there will be another civil war, or it will build a so-called Muslim democracy compatible with freedom of conscience and the universal values of the dignity of the person who has the right to believe in the god he wants.
* Professor at the Institute of Political Studies at the University of Lyon.
