Conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood

The Islamic rebellion spearheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood that took place in the 1970s and early 1980s in secularly oriented Syria ended in defeat for Syrian Islamism, with the Muslim Brothers effectively excluded from the country’s political system from then on. Yet this result should not overshadow the fact that it was the first, the largest and the richest instance of Islamic rebellion in the modern Arab world. Indeed, neither the Muslim Brothers in Egypt nor the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) in Algeria were able to confront their respective regimes with the same intensity and for as long as the Syrian Islamic Front did. It is in light of this that the most important question that is addressed in Part II of this work is, how has this rebellion impacted upon Syrian society? The main contentions in this section are the following: (1) while the rise of Islamic political activism in Syria during the era of Hafez al-Asad was very much contingent on the Bath’s socio-economic and political policies, its fall was due to a mix of measures used by the regime to deal with the immediate and long-term threats to its rule; (2) that these survival measures redefined the Syrian regime’s relationship to religion in general and to Islam in particular; (3) that the rebellion has deeply transformed Syrian politics and society, including the nation’s secular culture; (4) that today’s Islamic revival is very much rooted in the way the state chose to put an end to the Islamist threat. Chapter 4 will describe the confrontations between the state and the Muslim Brothers (including the Fighting Vanguard) as a result of the latter’s open challenge. It will also discuss existing theoretical approaches in the literature and will advance a new alternative approach for unpacking the reasons behind the transformation of the Syrian Islamic movement from a democratic political participant to a militant opposition. Chapter 5 will examine the regime’s survival strategies and their enduring impact on both Syria’s Islamic movement and secular environment. Ultimately, the manner in which the information is examined and organized in Part II offers insights that help explain the current mushrooming of Islamic groups in Syria and the extant command’s strategy in dealing with them.