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7 Explaining Shifts in Syria’s Islamist Opposition Fred H. Lawson Recent work on Islamist oppositions has at last recognized crucial distinctions among the diverse movements and organizations that have been active in the Middle East. The earlier image of an “Islamic wave” sweeping across the region has been superseded by a more nuanced view that attributes varying platforms and objectives, as well as divergent political and societal constituencies, to the Islamist oppositions that have taken shape in such diverse societies as Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. Nevertheless, it remains to pay careful attention to significant shifts taking place in the character of the Islamist movement that is politically active inside each country. “Resurgent Islam” is far from monolithic, whether across geographical space or through successive moments in time. In the case of Syria, four distinct stages in the developmental trajectory of the Islamist opposition can be delineated. The first accompanied the emergence of the Muslim Brothers (Ikhwan al-Muslimin) as a major political actor during the 1940s. The second was associated with the dissemination of the writings of the influential Islamist intellectual Sa‘id Hawwa and can be dated to the late 1960s and early 1970s. The third appeared at the start of the 1980s, with the promulgation of the program of the Islamic Front in Syria (al-Jabha al-Islamiyya fi Suriya) in November 1980 and the publication sixteen months later of the charter of the National Alliance for the Liberation of Syria (alTahaluf al-Watani li-Tahrir Suriya). A fourth stage can be discerned in the pronouncements issued by prominent Islamist critics of the Ba‘th Party–led regime as part of the tentative rapprochement between the Islamist movement and the authorities that took shape in the last decade of the twentieth century and accelerated immediately after Bashar al-Asad’s accession to the presidency. For the most part, Syria’s Islamists have called on successive regimes to implement a cluster of liberal reforms. The underlying political and economic liberalism that is evident in the pronouncements and strategies of the mainstream Islamist movement no doubt reflects the interests of the movement’s primary constituency—small-scale manufacturers and shopkeepers in the Explaining Shifts in Syria’s Islamist Opposition / 139 larger cities. Class interest fails, however, to account for important episodes of heightened radicalism, most notably the armed struggle against the Ba‘thi regime that erupted in the late 1960s and persisted until the early 1980s. Explaining crucial shifts in the dominant ideology and tactics of the movement demands careful consideration of the discourse advanced by the authorities at any particular moment, as well as the likelihood that representatives of the movement might actually be included in the policymaking process. Aspects of the interaction between the Islamist movement and the regime thus play a pivotal role in accounting for changes in the program of the Syrian opposition. Islamist Opposition as a Liberal Reform Movement During the course of 1944–46, a cluster of disparate Islamist groupings coalesced to form a Syrian manifestation of the Muslim Brothers, which quickly affirmed fraternal ties to the Egyptian Society of Muslim Brothers (Jam‘iyya al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin) that had been established under the leadership of Hasan al-Banna fifteen years earlier (Husaini 1956: 76; Abd-Allah 1983: 91). The emergence of the Syrian Ikhwan was orchestrated by the prominent Damascene activist Mustafa al-Siba‘i, who was elected general supervisor (almuraqib al-‘amm) of the new organization in the summer of 1946 (Reissner 1980: 124–26; Kota 2002). At the outset, Syria’s Muslim Brothers envisaged itself as a popular movement rather than a political organization. Al-Siba‘i observed in early 1947 that “our movement is neither a jam‘iyya [benevolent society] nor a political party, but [is instead] a ruh [spirit] that permeates the very being of the ummah [community of believers]: It is a new revolution” (Abd-Allah 1983: 93). The movement’s primary objective was the establishment of an Islamic order (nizam al-Islam) that could at last liberate Syria from foreign domination. Freedom from French imperial control was expected to be complemented by the adoption of a variety of reforms that would promote the full independence of the country and facilitate the political, economic, and social progress of the Syrian people. In addition, the Ikhwan al-Muslimin advocated agrarian land reform, the expansion of public education, and the development of an autonomous , prosperous, and progressive economy. To accomplish this ambitious program...

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