The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria () is the Syrian branch of the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organization. Its objective is the transformation of Syria into an Islamic state governed by Sharia law through a gradual legal and political process.
The party strongly opposes Pan-Arabism, socialism, capitalism, nationalism, communism, liberalism, and secularism in Syria. Founded at the end of World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria was seen as one of several important political parties in the 1950s. When Syria unified with Egypt to form the United Arab Republic, the disbanding of the Muslim Brotherhood as a political party was a condition of union, one complicated by Gamal Abdel Nasser's conflict in Egypt with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was banned by the government of the Syrian Arab Republic starting after the 1963 coup by the secularist, pan-Arabist Ba'ath Party.Wright, Robin, Dreams and Shadows : the Future of the Middle East, Penguin Press, 2008, p.241. . The Muslim Brotherhood played a major role in dissent against the secular Ba'ath Party during the period 1976–1982,Middle East Watch. Syria Unmasked: The Suppression of Human Rights by the Assad Regime. New Haven: Yale UP, 1991 and membership in the Brotherhood in Syria became a capital offence in 1980.Wright, Dreams and Shadows, 2008, p.248
Following the Hama uprising of 1982 in the wake of the wider Islamist insurgency in Syria (1979–1982), when thousands of armed insurgents and civilians were killed by the military the Brotherhood was effectively broken as an active political force inside Syria.
The Muslim Brotherhood in exile was among the 250 signatories of the Damascus Declaration of 2005, a statement of unity by Syrian opposition including the Arab nationalist National Democratic Rally, the Kurdish Democratic Alliance, the Committees of Civil Society, the Kurdish Democratic Front, and the Movement of the Future, and calling for "peaceful, gradual," reform "founded on accord, and based on dialogue and recognition of the other".
The Muslim Brotherhood was considered the main opposition group in Syria to the government on the eve of the 2011 uprising, but failed to make a significant mark on the protests against the government. The Syrian uprising's core population of protesters came from a younger generation which had come of age in a Syria without significant Muslim Brotherhood presence. However, among the expatriated opposition, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has come to be seen by some as the "dominant group" or "dominant force" in the opposition during the Syrian civil war as of spring 2012.
Despite these setbacks, the MB attempted to maintain its relevance by forming alliances with rebel factions and establishing the Waad Party in 2014. However, these efforts met with limited success, as more radical Islamist groups gained prominence on the ground. By the mid-2010s, the MB's role had become more peripheral, overshadowed by other Islamist and secular groups within the fragmented Syrian opposition. Nevertheless, it remained one of the more organized political entities in exile, continuing to participate in opposition activities and dialogues concerning Syria's future.
History
Once the second most important branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Syrian Ikhwan had two wings – the relatively moderate Damascus wing and the militant Aleppo wing. Becoming more revolutionary and radical in the 1960s and 1970s, they aimed to overthrow the Ba'athist government that controlled Syria. In Egypt, splinter groups inspired by Sayyid Qutb were growing more violent and militant than the mainline Brotherhood. In Syria, the entire organization was affected, as the internally divided leadership failed to contain the radicalization to the splinter groups. Even though the leadership publicly disavowed the radical elements, they were unable to contain the radicalization of the group because were mostly in exile due to the brutality and violent repression of the Syrian government.
The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria was founded in the mid-1940s by Mustafa al-Siba'i and Muhammad al-Mubarak al-Tayyib, who were friends and colleagues of the founder of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna. In the first years of Syrian independence the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was part of the legal opposition, and in the 1961 parliamentary elections it won ten seats. After the 1963 coup brought the secularist, pan-Arabist Ba'ath Party to power, it was banned. The Brotherhood played a major role in the mainly Sunni-based resistance movement that opposed the secular Ba'ath Party, (since 1971 dominated by the Alawite Assad family, adding a religious element to its conflict with the Brotherhood). This conflict developed into an armed struggle in the late 1970s that climaxed in the Hama uprising of 1982, when thousands were killed by the military.
Membership in the Syrian Brotherhood became a capital offence in Syria in the 1980 (under Law No. 49) and the Brotherhood was crushed, though it retained a network of support in the country, of unknown strength, and had external headquarters in London and Cyprus. In recent years it has renounced violence and adopted a reformist platform, calling for the establishment of a pluralistic, democratic political system. For many years the leader of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was Ali Sadreddine Al-Bayanouni, who lives as a political refugee in London.
Origins
Towards the end of the 1930s, the ideas of Hassan al-Banna reached Syria as young Syrians, who had graduated from university in Cairo and participated in the Muslim Brotherhood there, returned home and founded associations called "Youths of Muhammad" (Shabab Muhammad), which were to become the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria was founded in the 1930s (according to lexicorient.com) or in 1945, a year before independence from France, (according to journalist Robin Wright and the Brotherhood itself).Wright, Robin, Dreams and Shadows: the Future of the Middle East, Penguin Press, 2008, p. 241. The Brotherhood states its founder was Dr. Mustafa al-Siba'i. By 1954, the Syrian association led by Mustafa al-Siba'i offered assistance to its Egyptian sister organisation, which Gamal 'Abd al-Nasser was then subjecting to severe repression.Carré, 125.
However, it was not until the 1960s that the Syrian Brotherhood came to play a major role in politics, as part of a broad-based resistance movement, which developed into armed struggle, against the secular government. After the secular Ba'athist military coup of 8 March 1963, the new administration drastically restricted political freedoms, and concentrated power in the hands of the military and awarded prominent positions to the country's Alawite minority. Sunni Syrian Islamists – from the majority faith – did not have representation in the government. From the start, Islamic political groups, of which the Brotherhood was the most prominent, represented the strongest opposition to the government. The outlawing of Brotherhood in 1964 resulted in its radicalisation. In 1964 and 1965, strikes and mass demonstrations spread throughout Syria's major cities, especially in Hama, and were crushed by the military. In 1971, General Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, seized power; in 1973 violent demonstrations broke out again in response to a proposed constitution that did not require the president to be a Muslim. Syria's intervention in the Lebanese civil war in 1976 on the side of the Maronites sparked renewed agitation in Syria, and assassinations began to target members of the Syrian government and prominent Alawites; the Muslim Brotherhood later claimed responsibility for most of these.Carré, 131–135, 156.ICG, 3–4.
1976–82 Islamist insurgency
On 16 June 1979, the Muslim Brotherhood carried out an attack on cadets at the Aleppo Artillery School, officially killing 83. Around this time, professor Yusef al-Yusef was assassinated in Aleppo. The Syrian government responded by sentencing to death about 15 prisoners, already accused of being Iraqi agents, for belonging to the Islamic resistance movement. Terrorist attacks then became a daily occurrence, particularly in Aleppo and other northern cities. The government tended to ascribe these attacks to the Brotherhood, but as the armed resistance gained widespread popular support and more loosely defined armed groups appeared, especially in poor neighborhoods, it became difficult to determine the extent of the Brotherhood's involvement.Carré, 135-7.
In November 1979, a Brotherhood leaflet stated:
We reject all forms of despotism, out of respect for the very principles of Islam, and we don't demand the fall of Pharaoh so that another one can take his place. Religion is not imposed by force....Carré, 139.
In the days leading to 8 March 1980 (the seventeenth anniversary of the Ba'thist coup), nearly all Syrian cities were paralysed by strikes and protests, which developed into pitched battles with security forces. Many organisations, both religious and secular, were involved, including the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The government responded with overwhelming military force, sending in tens of thousands of troops, supported by tanks and helicopters. In and around Aleppo, hundreds of demonstrators were killed, and eight thousand were arrested. By April, the uprising had been crushed.Carré, 141–146.
A newspaper article by the president's brother, Rifaat al-Assad, stated that the government was prepared to "sacrifice a million martyrs" (over a tenth of Syria's population at that time) in order to stamp out "the nation's enemies". On 7 July 1980, the government passed a law making membership in the Brotherhood punishable by death. Typically, however, the administration practiced indiscriminate, collective punishment: in August, the army executed 80 residents of a block of flats in response to an attack on soldiers stationed in Aleppo. In April 1981, the army executed about 400 of Hama's inhabitants, chosen among male loyalists over the age of 14. This was as a retribution after a failed terrorist attack on an Alawite village near Hama.Carré, 148–151.
During a 50-day moratorium on the application of the 7 July law, over a thousand Muslim Brothers surrendered to the authorities, hoping to escape the death penalty; information published about them in the official press may give some insight into the composition of the Brotherhood's membership at that time. Most of those who gave themselves up were students under twenty-five years of age, from Damascus and other large cities; others were schoolteachers, professors or engineers.Carré, 151.
In August, September and November 1981, the Brotherhood carried out three car-bomb attacks against government and military targets in Damascus, killing hundreds of people, according to the official press. On 2 February 1982, the Brotherhood led a major insurrection in Hama, rapidly taking control of the city; the military responded by bombing Hama (whose population was about 250,000) throughout the rest of the month, killing between 10,000 and 30,000 people. The tragedy of the Hama Massacre marked the defeat of the Brotherhood, and the militant Islamic movement in general, as a political force in Syria.Carré, 159.ICG, 4.
Post-Hama era Having suppressed all opposition, Hafez al-Assad released some imprisoned members of the Brotherhood in the mid-1990s. After his death in 2000, Assad was succeeded by his son, Bashar al-Assad, who initially signalled greater openness to political debate. In May 2001, encouraged by a new political climate, the Muslim Brotherhood published a statement in London rejecting political violence, and calling for a modern, democratic state. Many political prisoners, including Muslim Brothers, were pardoned and released. However, this reform was short-lived; in the same year, the few political freedoms that had been granted were abruptly revoked.ICG, 4, 7–8.