Reflection on the Liberation of Syria

 

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا سيدي يا رسول الله

وعلى آلك واصحابك يا سيدي يا نور الله

فداك ابي وامي يا رسول الله

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds, that today Syria is liberated. The cowardly taghut Assad has fled to Moscow, and his Nusairi cum Ba’thist regime has collapsed. The Sunni Muslims of Syria are rejoicing, as are many other Muslims around the world who are aware of or closely following the situation. But let us not be naive and pretend as though the United States, its CIA, and the Zionists didn’t play a major role from behind the scenes in facilitating the victory of the Syrian rebels. Drawing attention to this fact is now the drumbeat of those that favored the so-called “Axis of Resistance”, particularly the Shi’a, but also leftists and secular anti-Zionists of various shades. These people are apparently perplexed as to the attitude of the mainstream Sunni Muslims who hail the fall of Assad, hitherto an integral component of the so-called “Axis”. The truth is that there is this impression in the minds of many Shi’a and their leftist, anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist sympathizers among the non-Muslims that the Sunnis are manipulated by the Americans and the West who exploit their conservative religiosity and fundamentalism for their own geopolitical interests. The truth is that the Americans and the CIA have a better understanding of Islamic sensibilities, especially of us Sunni Muslims, than their enemies Russia and China. The latter two have historically seen secularist and non-religious elements in the Muslim world as their natural allies, including heretical sects that the mainstream Muslims hate, such as the Alawites (Nusairis). By propping up the minorities and the heretics, at the expense of the Sunni Muslim majority, Russia and her proxies have created ill will toward them. Iran too played a very sectarian game in the Near East, creating nothing but ill will toward it from ordinary Sunni Muslims who suffered immensely at the hands of Iran’s Shi’ite proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Now these powers, Russia and Iran in particular, and their proponents are expressing dismay and disappointment at the Sunni Muslims for allegedly playing into the hands of the Zionists by liberating Syria and taking it out of Russian and Iranian sphere of influence. Rather than reflect on their own disastrous policies and their oppression of the Sunni Muslims these insincere people are content to make their armchair criticism of us.

The truth is that as per the new Cold War that is being waged between the United States or the West on one side and Russia, China and their proxies on the other side, we Muslims have been made into pawns for either side, with the Sunni Muslims generally serving the interests of the Americans and the Shi’ites and other heretical minorities favored by Russia. On a geopolitical level we Muslims do not have much agency. That is simply the reality of being a subjugated and weak people. And as I have repeatedly explained before this weakness and subjugation is a consequence of our moral corruption and spiritual decline. There is no question that of the two evils, the West versus Russia and China, the West or America is the lesser of the two evils. And while the savage Zionists have massacred over forty thousand Palestinians to date since the events of October 7, 2023, Assad and the Russians slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Syrians since the civil war broke out there in 2012. It is quite hypocritical for people to condemn the inhumane acts of the Zionists in Gaza while advocating for Russia and Assad, who are worse criminals.

Whoever the new Syrian government is they would be wise to curtain the agency of the minorities in that country, as the minorities naturally sided with the brutal but secular dictatorship. An aggressive policy of Sunnification is required for Syria so as to ensure that such a situation of a heretical minority gaining power in that country is never again repeated. And we know that the Nusairi so-called Alawites were only empowered as a consequence of the policy of the French imperialist in the twentieth century. As I have explained, the heretical minorities naturally ally with the external enemies of Islam as they feel it is necessary to secure their own existence and prosperity at the expense of the Sunni Muslim majority. Unlike British policy, that of the French imperialist in the Levant was extremely detrimental to Sunni Muslims. Not only did they establish modern-day Lebanon as a Christian enclave, they balkanized the region to break the power of the Sunnis and allow minorities like the Alawites and Druze to have greater agency.

Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman symbolism is welcomed by us Sunni Muslims as historically the Ottoman Turks had great zeal for defending the interests of mainstream, orthodox Islam and kept the minorities declawed. We celebrate the memory of the Ottomans as a Sunni, Hanafi empire which not only kept the Zionists at bay, but also suppressed various Christian ethnic groups, and appropriately crushed uprisings of the heretics. The fall of the Ottomans regrettably made way for powers that are not aligned with the interests of mainstream, orthodox Islam to rise, such as the Saudis and Iran. Therefore, a resuscitation of Turkish power and the spread of their influence in the Near East ought to be welcomed if it is a phenomenon that seeks to defend the interests of conservative Sunni Islam. In the regional rivalry involving Turkey, Iran and the Gulf Arabs the mainstream Sunnis are happy to throw our lot with Turkey.