Razika Adnani, Franco-Algerian philosopher and Islamologist, author of “Exit from Islamism” (Erick Bonnier) explains how the fall of Bashar al-Assad and the coming to power of Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, the leader of fundamentalist Islamist group Haïat Tahrir al-Sham, sign the end of a period of modernization of society and the State in Syria, and the return to the tradition of the caliphs and emirs.
The arrival of Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, the leader of the fundamentalist Islamist group Haïat Tahrir al-Sham, to power in Syria and the fall of Bashar al-Assad mark the end of an important history of Syria and the entire Muslim world. That of the we period of modernization of society and the State desired by intellectuals and politicians in the 19the century.
Their objective was to lift their societies out of underdevelopment, the archaism of traditions and religious conservatism so that they did not remain behind modern civilization. It was the time when Western civilization, considered a civilization of humanity, was admired for its values and achievements.
La nahda, an exceptional project
Certainly, the Nahda had its limits. Those who wore it had not themselves been able to free themselves completely from the weight of the past and traditions. In the political domain, the principle of obedience was one of these impediments. It draws its legitimacy from the Koran: “ Obey God obey the prophet and those in authority among you », verse 59 of sura 4, Women. He ” is opposed not only to freedom, but also to equality, since the one who obeys does not have the same rights as the one to whom he owes obedience, that is, the one who has authority » (Razika Adnani, The necessary reconciliationUPblisher, second edition, p. 43).
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On the other hand, the human being who loves the domination of others finds in this Koranic injunction what allows him to legitimize his desire and to exercise it in excess. Certainly, in a system based on political and moral obedience as a virtue ” the strongest has no qualms about using violence to enforce his right to be obeyed, or what he considers to be obeyed ».(Ibidemp. 47.)
Despite these limitations, reforms of the Nahda were extraordinary for the Muslim world. In the space of a few years, the change in society was spectacular, particularly in areas where it seemed impossible. Women acquired rights that they had never dreamed of having before: to leave the house, not to wear the veil, to educate themselves and to work. Religious minorities were freed of the inferior status imposed on them. Although it is mentioned in Koranic texts and regulated by the jurisprudence of the ancients. The first to abolish it was Sultan Abdulmajid 1isOttoman Caliph, in an Imperial Charter published in 1839. The change created by the Nahda was such that even today we marvel at the images that immortalized him (read on the subject my book Getting Out of Islamism, published by Erick Bonnier, December 2024.)
The response of Islamists and conservatives
However, the response from Islamists and conservatives who saw these reforms as lightning that had struck Muslims and Islam was fierce. By taking advantage of political and geopolitical events, they have succeeded not only in interrupting this process of modernization, but also in gradually erasing what has been achieved, particularly in the area of freedoms and equality.
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Their objective was to rediscover the model of the State and society before the 19th century as if the Nahda had never existed. The fall of Assad, which gives way to fundamentalist Islamists, is the event which proves that Syria has completely, because the regression has affected all Muslim countries, turned the page of this important period, despite the dictatorship, of the country’s history joining Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza and Libya.
Explicit Islamist intentions
Although he is an avowed Islamist and former member of al-Qaeda, al-Joulani, the new master of Syria, raises questions about his true intentions. However, by choosing, upon arriving in Damascus, to make his first speech at the Umayyad mosque, he gave the whole world proof leaving no ambiguity as to his Islamist intentions.. Given that with this political choice, he clearly revives the tradition of caliphs and emirs who made their political inauguration and obtained the oath of allegiance from the population to the mosque. It immediately excludes religious minorities and women from political life, given that access to this place of prayer and political meetings is prohibited to women by religious people who are always men.
Thus, with his appearance as a politician, in the middle of the crowd of only men in an Umayyad mosque, al-Joulani erased everything that had been achieved in the field of modernization of society and the state in Syria and sent a message to the Shiites, including the Alawites, that the Sunnis are once again the masters of the country. Remember that the Umayyads, who were Sunnis, are considered by the Shiites as those who massacred Hossein, the prophet’s grandson, in Karbala. It is a painful event that they have commemorated for centuries every year in Karbala, Iraq.
The Islamists of the HTC send Syria back to the period before the Nahda
The choice of the Umayyad mosque for al-Joulani’s first speech in Damascus is a political act returning Syria to the period before the Nahda and places it very far from the Constitution of 1930 which stipulates in its article 6 that “there will be established between them (the Syrians) no inequality of treatment due to religion, confession, race or language “.
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Al-Joulani thus buries this era of modernization in Syria. We must therefore expect, like the Taliban, announcements of rules to lock up women, marry off girls from the age of 9 and subject non-Muslims to the system of dhimmitude. Islamists know they can do this in a world shaken by major political and geopolitical upheavals at the start of the 21st century.e century. They are aware that the international community will find excuses to accept them regardless of their trampling on rights and freedoms as it does with the Taliban.
There is therefore no doubt that Bashar al-Assad was a terrible dictator. However, there is also no doubt that a dark era is beginning in Syria with the arrival of the most fundamentalist Islamists in power.
