Syria’s Mission: Religious Reform
April 2009
Religious
moderation is Syria’s distinctive characteristic. The cultural heritage
of the Syrians reflects the evolved cultures of the East and the West
over the long sweep of history. Of particular significance is the
tolerant attitude of the average Syrian towards other religions and
ethnicities. In a Middle East afflicted by religious dogma, extremism,
bigotry, discrimination, and violence in the name of God the Syrian
society is a refreshing model of tolerance and moderation.
A moderate climate, a well diversified natural resources endowment, and
a strategic location at the center of Asia, Europe, and Africa have
combined to make Syria a cradle of nearly three dozen different
civilizations over the past twelve millennia. The interaction among
these civilizations arguably evolved into the earliest models of
settled agriculture and urbanized societies, the earliest forms of
alphabet and writing, and, significantly, the invention of Semitic
deities plus the monotheistic faiths.
Might Syria be true to its heritage of religious creativity? Might
Syria produce the future Muslim Martin Luther; or, at the very least,
might Syria succeed in separating religion from the state; thus,
setting an example for the Arab world, like Kemal Ataturk’s success in
separating Islam from the Turkish State following the First World War?
State secularization and Islamic reform are important for two reasons.
The first is to set free peoples’ creativity and intellectual
reasoning. The hold of the ulama class on Muslim minds is the worst
form of slavery. Continued control by the clerics will continue to
manacle Muslims to seventh century laws and dogma of the Arabian
Desert. Unless this control is ended the Arab and Muslim peoples will
sadly remain intellectually barren, trapped in poverty, the object of
ridicule and exploitation by the developed world.
To join the ranks of the developed world is to manumit the mind from the spell of the ulama.
Such would free people from the debilitating demagoguery of the belief
in predestination, fate, superstition, and psychotic explanations of
the evil eye and the machinations of angels and djinn. Release from the
ulama’s hold would end personal status laws that reduce women to chattel.
Release from the ulama’s influence would also mean becoming free to
study the historicity of the Quran and the Hadith scientifically
without the fear of being persecuted under blasphemy laws.
The demand for the clerics’ services should be reduced. Muslims can
learn from the European experience. Had it not been for separating
Christianity from the European state, for ending the tyranny of the
church’s clergy, the industrial revolution might not have happened when
it did and Western modernity might not have become what we see today.
Muslim governments ought to separate religion from the state, institute
modern laws and judicial systems, and emphasize in the educational
curriculum and public discourse the peaceful and creative parts in the
Islamic creed. Separating religion from the state does not mean,
however, relegating the religious preferences of individuals a
secondary role. The relationship between God and man is a personal
matter and must be respected.
The second benefit from state secularization and religious reform is to
sharpen the fight against jihadism and terrorism. Release from the
control of extremist clerics, who preach violence, martyrdom, and
intolerance against other religions and Islamic sects, like what the
Saudi Wahhabi clerics teach with impunity, could reduce jihadism and
terrorism. Is it a coincidence that fifteen of the nineteen hijackers
who committed the September 11 atrocities,
along with Osama Bin Laden and many of his lieutenants, are all Saudis?
This is not to imply, however, that 9/11 was a state-sponsored
atrocity.
Attempts at secularization and modernization in independent Syria date
back to the country’s first coup in 1949, led by General Husni Al-Zaim.
During his short four-and-a-half-month rule, Husni Al-Zaim set in
motion fundamental changes akin in some respects to the Ataturk reforms
in Turkey. For example, literate women were given the vote; the process
of breaking up the awkaf (or religious endowments) and of substituting
modern civil, criminal, and commercial codes for the Muslim Shari’a law
was advanced (Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria, 1986, 58).
Syria’s successive governments since independence from the French
mandate in 1946 maintained a drive towards modernization. However,
religious reforms have been lacking. Shari’a courts, for example, still
hear cases involving personal status, family, and inheritance disputes
of Muslims (non-Muslims follow their spiritual courts). Further,
although Syria’s constitution is the only constitution in the Arab
world that does not make Islam the religion of the state, it specifies,
however, that the president must be a Muslim.
While it is safe to say that most Syrians are conscious of the threat
Islamist extremism poses to their way of life and age-old religious and
ethnic harmony, the forty-year old rule by the “secular” Baath Party
has been timid in effecting serious religious reforms. The caution may
be attributed to the government’s inability to confront hostilities
from two quarters simultaneously; namely, Washington’s political
hostility towards Damascus plus the opposition that religious reforms
could provoke, especially among the orthodox element of Syria’s Sunni
population. Orthodoxy has been on the rise alarmingly in the recent
decades as a reaction to political frustrations at home and from
abroad.
To fortify against Washington’s pressure, the government projects an
image of Islamic piety in order to benefit from Islam’s injunction that
Muslims must obey the Muslim ruler blindly. God orders in 4:59 of the
Quran: “Obey God and obey God’s messenger and obey those of authority
among you.” Further, the Prophet Muhammad was reported as saying,
according to Muslim’s Hadith collection, “He who obeys me obeys God; he
who disobeys me, disobeys God. He who obeys the ruler, obeys me; he who
disobeys the ruler, disobeys me.” Abi Dawood and Ibn Maja, also, quoted
the Prophet in their Hadith collections as ordering the faithful to
hear and obey their ruler, even if he were an Ethiopian slave.
For Syria to embark upon a serious program of secularization and
religious reforms, the government needs to concentrate all of its
resources to confront domestic religious opposition to secularization
and religious reforms, without foreign distractions. Good relations
between Washington and Damascus could go a long way towards enabling
Syria realize its religious reforming potential.
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