Syrian reforms re-defining political environment despite limitations

By Abbas Fadl Murtada

Since he became president last July, Bashar al-Asad of Syria has initiated a process of political and economic reform. Asad has issued a series of decrees and submitted several draft laws to the country’s People’s Assembly (parliament) dealing with various aspects of Syrian political and socio-economic life. These moves are rightly viewed with scepticism by many people, who notice the continued restrictions on the Islamic movement; in recent weeks, a number of activists, and businessmen accused of supporting them, have been arrested and interrogated. Nonetheless, these moves are a considerable change in Syria’s political environment.

Asad has pardoned 600 long-serving political prisoners, closed the notorious Mazzeh prison (long a byword for the repression of the Ba’athist state) and submitted a draft law for a general amnesty covering a wide range of common-law crimes. Encouraged by this atmosphere of openness, advocacy groups such as the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Syria, which have long been active underground, have come into the open.

The ruling Ba’ath party has also decided to allow the six legal political parties that are its partners in the Progressive National Front (PNF) to issue their own newspapers. This is a significant departure from previous practice, allowing constituent parties of the PNF, which was formed in 1972 as a coalition between the Ba’ath and political groups of a communist or Arab nationalist complexion, to distribute their publications openly. A ministerial committee has drafted a new law ending the government’s monopoly of the press. The draft empowers the cabinet to issue newspaper licences to individuals and authorized political parties. Ali Farzat, a well-known cartoonist, has applied for a license to issue a satirical paper. This would be the first such publication to be issued independently since the Ba’ath seized political power in a military coup in 1963.

Work on a multimillion-dollar network for internet communications is underway. The network will be run by a company in which the state-run Syrian Telecommunications Foundation will hold a 25 percent stake; private Syrian and Arab investors will own the remaining 75 percent. Under the new network, access to the internet, currently the privileged domain of public administration, companies and universities, will become available to the public.

Like the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, after he launched perestroika (‘openness’), Asad has come to realize that political freedom cannot be withheld indefinitely from all quarters of society or sociopolitical life. Indeed, Asad’s ‘perestroika’ has awakened civil society. Civil society associations and forums have mushroomed since he became president. Limits to such freedoms are emerging, however: organisers of new political discussion-groups in Damascus reacted in dismay when vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam warned the discussion-salons not to cross certain lines.

The fact that such salons exist at all, however, is a start. So too is the growing outspokenness of some intellectuals. Last September a group of respected Syrian intellectuals issued the so-called “Petition of 99,” demanding among other things the release of all political prisoners. In January some thousand writers, artists, professionals, businessmen and academics signed a Basic Document calling on the president to introduce wide-ranging political reforms. The Document, drawn up by the Committees for the Revival of Civil Society, urged Asad to end the state of emergency and martial law, release all political prisoners, allow the return of political exiles, ensure the independence and integrity of the judiciary and, most notably, end the Ba’ath party’s monopoly of political power by enacting a law for elections to be held under the supervision of an independent judiciary. Among the prominent figures who signed the document are independent member of parliament and businessman Riyad Sayf, ultra-secularist and anti-Islamist philosopher Sadeq Jalal al-’Azm, writers Khayri al-Dhahabi and Mayya al-Rahbi, researchers Michel Kilo, Walid al-Bunni, ‘Arif Dalila, Najati Tayyarah, Ihsan ‘Abbas and Jad al-Karim Jaba’i, and cinematographer Nabil al-Maleh.

Later in January, 70 lawyers issued a statement demanding political reforms, particularly public freedoms and the end of the state of emergency and martial law. They also demanded legislation that would guarantee the neutrality of the state in the conduct of elections, thus paving the way for the rotation of power through the ballot-box.

In an interview with the daily al-Sharq al-Awsat (February 8, 2001), Asad raised the prospect of allowing new political parties alongside those in power under the umbrella of the Ba’ath-led PNF. “There is an idea to develop party activity in Syria; all possibilities are open, including that of having new parties,” he said.

Such a development might well unleash a storm of change. So far the constituent parties of the PNF have behaved more like extensions of the Ba’ath party than independent bodies. Since they joined the PNF these parties have led a semi-clandestine existence. Their role in public political life has been limited at best. Their positions have always been barely distinguishable from the government. Their membership is estimated to have ranged between 300 and 10,000, with the two wings of the Communist party, the Bakdash and Faysal wings, being the most active and effective among them.

The reforms seem to suggest that the democratic sentiments expressed in Bashar al-Asad’s inauguration speech, which referred to transparency, respect for opposing views and pluralism, might be a little more than rhetoric. But they are also inspired in part by internal and external pressures. Syria’s social, economic and cultural life atrophied during the 30-year rule of Hafez al-Asad. There is a large and widening gap between the rich and poor. More importantly, the burdens of underdevelopment are not shared equitably, with an island of affluence surrounded by a sea of poverty and destitution. Economic benefits are allocated largely through a system of clientelism and patronage feeding voraciously at public expense.

The system of government instituted by the Ba’ath party is in many ways a carbon-copy of the one that prevailed in the former ‘eastern bloc’. It is a largely centralized and authoritarian system in which there are few legitimate mechanisms by which the population can complain against public officials or influence the policymaking process. The state became monolithic: the security agencies enjoy wide, largely unchecked, powers, instilling fear in the people. The new president seems to have realised, even before coming to power, that such a system is an anachronism. The internal pressures for accountability and participation were also compounded by the challenges of globalization, economic integration and the conflict with Israel.

The rejuvenation of civil society currently under way might lead eventually to a radical change in the basis of governance. Since it came to power in 1963, the Ba’ath regime has justified its rule by a glib and superficial “revolutionary legitimacy.” It made the institutions of civil society irrelevant to the country’s governance, and transformed the institutions of state into spoils to be distributed among chosen nomenklatura. The Ba’athist hegemony effectively depoliticised Syrian society.

If carried to their logical conclusion, Asad’s reforms would shift the legitimacy of political power from “putschist-cum-revolutionary legitimacy” to “constitutional legitimacy,” thus making the state an instrument of the rule of law. But it is safe to say that it will not be easy to push reforms against the existing network of vested interests and entrenched bureaucratic habits, even if Asad genuinely desires to do so.

In his recent interview with al-Sharq al-Awsat, he said: “The important thing is to move forward in a measured fashion “as all development needs discussion.” That effecting change should be a gradual affair is understandable in the light of opposition from entrenched power centres, the natural impulse being to ensure that the floodgates of reform will not sweep the regime away altogether. It is also important to preserve internal stability, which was established after long years of turbulence. Asad faces the “Gorbachev dilemma”: preserving stability and the regime is conditional on prosperity and change, which in turn are hard to bring about without social and political stability.

There has been growing pressure from within some government circles against the movement toward reform. But the old guard may well realise that, although the age of overt military coups in Syria ended long ago, the age of undeclared, non-military coups might just have started.

Abbas Fadl Murtada

The Seerah as a model for the total transformation of society

Zafar Bangash

Last month, the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) announced that it will hold an International Seerah Conference in Pretoria, South Africa, in June this year. This follows similar conferences in Pakistan and Sri Lanka last year.

ZAFAR BANGASH, Director of the ICIT, discusses the Seerah and the thinking behind the ICIT’s programme of Seerah conferences.

That Muslims have a deep attachment to the noble Messenger of Allah (saw.) is beyond doubt. His birthday is celebrated by Muslims throughout the world. During the Rushdie fitna, Muslims demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice their lives to defend the Prophet’s honour. This is exactly how it should be; after all, Allah says that he was sent as a “mercy to all the worlds” (21:107), and as “a witness, bringing glad tidings, and as a warner” to humanity (33:45).

But the noble Messenger of Allah was sent not only to inform but to transform humanity by bringing it “out of darkness into light” (65:11). This is a point not fully appreciated by many Muslims today. The Seerah (life-history) of the noble Messenger has been reduced to a few anecdotes about his life, and some rituals. That the Seerah is central to the very ethos of Muslim life is also forgotten. The Qur’an cannot be understood without recourse to the Seerah. As Seyyeda Aisha (r.a.) pointed out, the Prophet’s character was the Qur’an in practice. In a well-known hadith, the noble Messenger himself has said: “Hold to the Qur’an and my Sunnah (life-example), and you will not go astray.” There are other versions, but the point is clear.

During the Prophet’s time (nearly 1500 years ago), Arabia was steeped in jahiliyyah in which idol-worship was the basis of religious, social and cultural behaviour. People believed in Allah, but they associated partners with Him. Injustice, oppression, tribal arrogance (and tribal warfare borne of such arrogance), female infanticide and slavery were other practices that characterised Arabian society at the time. Today Muslims are afflicted by many of the same problems, even though the worship of idols has been replaced by the worship of nationalism, money and class interests. Thus, in order to bring about a “total transformation” of their societies — to echo the phrase memorably used by the late Dr Kalim Siddiqui — Muslims will first have to understand the nature of the dhulm and darkness that surrounds them. Their success in transforming their societies will be determined by their proximity to the Prophetic Sunnah and Seerah.

For some Muslims, the Prophet’s Seerah is a means to attaining greater spirituality, oblivious of its relevance for the world at large. Muslims use the Seerah to seek blessings but not guidance, and individual but not collective salvation. No lessons are derived from it for the arduous struggle of life. Many Muslims quote hadiths (sayings of the Prophet) endlessly, but either do not follow them or use them selectively to support their preconceived ideas.

Allah declares in the noble Qur’an: “He [Allah] it is Who sent the Messenger with clear guidance and the Deen of Truth so that it becomes dominant over all other systems, however much the mushrikeen may oppose this” (9:33 and 61:11). We know that Islam became dominant during the lifetime of the noble Messenger of Allah (saw) but this is no longer the case, despite there being more than 1.2 billion Muslims in the world today. The darkness that prevailed in Arabia at the time of the Prophet has once again engulfed the world, but on a much greater scale.

The Prophet’s example is applicable at all times and in all situations because he is the “seal of all the Prophets” (33:40); no more Prophets will come after him. Yet contemporary Muslims have failed to derive appropriate lessons from the Seerah to guide them back to a position of dominance in conformity with Allah’s promise. The Prophet’s Seerah demonstrates a complete and perfect model for humanity covering all aspects of life, personal, family and community life, as well the ordering of society and state. The application of the Prophetic method in its entirety is, therefore, the only way to transform Muslim societies. The Muslims’ present predicament confirms their deviation from the divinely-prescribed path as exemplified by the Seerah: Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala commands the believers to “obey the Messenger” (4:59) whom He describes as “the best of exemplars” (33:21).

While Muslims accept the validity of these principles and even argue passionately in their favour, in practice they appear to have accepted the de facto separation of deen from politics and other aspects of societal activity. There is a long history behind this schizophrenic behaviour, which has affected not only the socio-political and economic outlook of Muslims but has also made its impact on the study and understanding of the Seerah itself.

For instance, Muslims spend endless hours arguing about the number of miracles the noble Messenger of Allah performed and whether the mi’raj was a physical journey or merely a vision. While there may be merit in discussing these at some level, the Muslims’ present plight hardly allows for such indulgences. It would be far more relevant to consider the circumstances in which the Prophet was rewarded with mi’raj. He had to endure 12 years of extreme hardship and when the worldly prospects for his mission appeared bleak, there was an explosion of divine mercy, culminating in mi’raj. So the mi’raj must not be viewed merely as a phenomenon that occurred in isolation but as the culmination of a long process of struggle to establish Allah’s deen. The secularization of Islam through the dark period of history has clearly taken its toll, freezing many vital issues out of Muslim consciousness. The study of the Prophet’s Seerah, for both historical and contemporary reasons, has also fallen victim to this phenomenon.

It is with this problem in mind that the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) continues its efforts to study the Seerah from a new perspective by organizing international conferences. Last year, two International Seerah Conferences were organized, one in Sri Lanka (June 16-18) and the other in Pakistan (June 25). The response of Muslim scholars from around the world was overwhelming. This year, another International Seerah Conference is planned for South Africa (June 15-17).

The ICIT’s aim is not to repeat what earlier scholars have already written about the Seerah but to seek answers to contemporary problems through the processes of examination and analysis of the Seerah. The Seerah literature is a goldmine of basic information which has to be sifted, analyzed and applied to contemporary issues and problems. Why Muslims have failed to derive any lessons from the Seerah to solve their current problems, especially relating to their collective existence and governance, is a question that needs careful consideration.

Few Muslims have risen above their emotional attachment to the Prophet and appreciated the larger significance of the Seerah. They are accustomed to reading a ‘sanitized’ version of the Seerah, oblivious of the Prophet’s role in dealing with such issues as state and politics. Some recoil in horror from the idea that the Prophet had anything to do with politics. The corruption of politics and the abuse of power and authority clearly has much to do with this, but it also reflects the distorted view some Muslims have of the Seerah itself. Since crookedness and lying have become considered a normal, indeed essential, part of modern politics, Muslims have assumed that politics per se is bad. Similarly, the reduction of Islam to merely a “religion” like so many others has resulted in Muslims overlooking many important aspects of Islam and the Seerah.

Another misconception is also common among Muslims: they believe the Prophet was sent merely to convey a message; he had no responsibility beyond that. These Muslims may agree that rectifying people’s morals was also part of his mission, but little else. According to this line of thinking, if the people of Makkah had merely stopped worshipping idols everything would have been all right. There would have been no need for the Prophet to migrate to Madinah or to establish an Islamic State. There are some Muslims who even go so far as to argue that there was no Islamic state, merely a Muslim community in Madinah. Is there a difference between the two? What then of the Qur’anic ayah: “Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger and those charged with authority among you” (4:59)? Who are the people placed in authority and what is their role? Do they have any power? Do they exercise their authority, or is their role merely to advise people to behave, without any mechanisms of enforcement to ensure compliance?

From this line of argument follows another misrepresentation: it was not the Prophet who challenged the prevalent system; the challenge came from the kuffar. The Prophet, according to them, was a pacifist who believed in non-violence and shunned all worldly authority. This is based on a superficial understanding of the situation in Makkah, where the Muslims did not physically resist the oppression of the mushrikeen. Does the absence of physical resistance automatically mean no resistance at all, or even acquiescence? What about the ideological and psychological challenges posed to the system in Makkah by the proclamation of the kalimah, “La ilaha il-Allah, Muhammad al-Rasool Allah” (“There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”)? Such stalwarts of the jahili system as Abu Lahab and Abu Jahl were roundly condemned by the Qur’an itself (surah 111 and ayaat 43:43-46). Then there was the challenge to the social system, in which the aristocracy was split right down the middle. The sons and daughters of leading figures entered the fold of Islam, repudiating the existing order and their own privileged position in it. Islam also proclaimed the rights of women and slaves, in direct and open challenge to the existing social order in Makkah.

But the question remains: why have so many Muslims adopted an apologetic attitude to the use of force to confront evil and oppression? Part of the reason may be found in the anti-Islamic propaganda alleging that Islam was “spread by the sword.” In order to refute such allegations, Muslims have resorted to a pacifist interpretation of the Seerah. The other reason may be found in the vast body of Seerah literature itself. The early compilers of the Seerah naturally concentrated on an accurate record of events. Islam’s impact on the world was so great that Muslims were anxious to learn every detail, however minute, about the life of the Messenger of Allah who was at the centre of all the breathtaking changes. This need was felt both by early Muslims who did not get the blessings of the company of the Prophet for very long, as well as those who came into the fold later. In fact, a proper understanding of the Qur’an and Islam was and is only possible through a greater awareness of the Prophet’s Seerah.

Responding to the needs of early Muslims, and in order to preserve the most accurate record of events, the scholars busied themselves with recording every detail of the blessed life of the Prophet. The early biographers did not concentrate on the Prophet’s method of acquiring power. This, as Dr Kalim Siddiqui has pointed out in his paper Political Dimensions of the Seerah (ICIT, 1998), was perhaps because Muslims were already in power and their influence was increasing, with new lands coming continually under their sway. There appeared to be no need to discuss issues that were already taken for granted; Islam was the dominant reality and they saw no reason why that should change.

Another reason for recording every detail of his life, especially the moral precepts he enjoined and the great victories he achieved in battles was that pre-Islamic Arabia was steeped in jahiliyyah. Islam reintroduced the values that had been ordained by Allah through all the earlier Prophets but which had since been forgotten. Muslims were anxious to conform as closely as possible to the Seerah of the final Messenger of Allah. Similarly, narration of the Prophet’s conduct in numerous battles was a source of great inspiration for Muslims. This is evident in the brilliant victories they achieved in a short period of time after the death of the Prophet. So it not surprising that the early biographers concentrated on narrating details of the Prophet’s life, the Seerah, and his battles (maghazi).

Another reason maybe that after the period of the Khulafa al-Rashidoon (the four ‘rightly-guided’ successors to the Prophet), rulers started to deviate from the Prophetic example. Muslim scholars felt, quite rightly, that by highlighting the spiritual and moral dimensions of the Seerah, they would encourage the rulers to reflect upon their own conduct, personal as well as administrative.

There is another important aspect of the Seerah: no miracles were performed by the Prophet in his struggle to establish the Islamic state. This was clearly part of the divine scheme. If the Islamic state had come into existence by miracles and not through sustained human effort, future generations would have used this as an excuse to claim that they could not possibly achieve the same results as the noble Messenger. In fact, the establishment of the Islamic State in Madinah provides additional proof of the finality of his Prophethood. The Prophet also demonstrated superb mastery in the conduct of state and politics, two fields not normally considered to fall within the domain of Prophetic mission. Of all known previous Prophets, only Yusuf, Daud and Sulaiman (a.s.) acquired worldly power.

This led perhaps to the assumption that religion has nothing to do with politics. The Prophet, upon be peace, not only established a state where none existed before, but it became so powerful that it went on to dominate the world for more than 1,000 years. It was only by the deviation of Muslim rulers from the Prophetic Sunnah that Islamic power lost its standing, and societies ruled by Muslims strayed from the Prophetic principles and standards. It is also clear that only by understanding and applying the Prophetic method can these standards be re-asserted, and Islamic social order re-established as the only natural habitat for Muslims, indeed of all human beings.

It is to these matters that Muslims must begin to pay attention. Dr Kalim Siddiqui led the way, and many scholars are now following his lead. A volume containing papers on this subject by Muhammad al-Asi and this author was published early last year (The Seerah: a Power Perspective, ICIT, 2000 [see p. 7 above]) and proceedings of the ICIT’s Seerah conferences last year will shortly be published. In the meantime, the ICIT hopes that holding international conferences to bring together scholars to discuss these issues will go some way towards addressing the contemporary problems of Muslims. What we must bear in mind is that Muslims must not limit themselves to narrating what has already been recorded in Seerah books. A simple description of the Seerah, however eloquent, is not the purpose of such conferences. The aim is to derive and discuss fresh analytical insights to the Seerah.

The ICIT invites scholars to submit abstracts of papers before April 30. Dr Kalim Siddiqui pointed out that “the Seerah... is a vast ocean that cannot be charted in a short paper”. The same is true of a conference, or even a series of conferences. But the ICIT’s objective, in starting this work, is to help Muslim scholars to develop fresh approaches to the understanding of the Seerah that can inform the intellectual revolution in Muslim political thought that, despite the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the blossoming of the global Islamic movement, remains embryonic. Such an intellectual revolution is essential for the “total transformation” of the Ummah and the emergence of a new era of Islamic civilization in the future.

Zafar Bangash