SYRIA: SUNNI OPPOSITION TO THE MINORITY ALAWITE REGIME

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T00587R000200220002-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 1, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

Directorate of -Se"4t_
Intelligence
Minority Alawite Regime
Syria: Sunni Opposition to t e
A Research Paper
Stet
NESA 85-10102
June 1985
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Intelligence
Minority Alawite Regime
Syria: Sunni Opposition to the
A Research Paper
Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis. It
was coordinated with the Directorate of
Operations. F-1
This paper was prepared by
Comments and queries are welcome and may be
directed to the Chief, Arab-Israeli Division, NESA,
Secret
NESA 85-10102
June 1985
`T;`" Directorate of Secret
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Syria: Sunni Opposition to the
Minority Alawite Regimen 25X1
Summary President Hafiz al-Assad maintains a firm grip on power in Syria, but
Information available resentment among the country's majority Sunni population at the predomi-
as of 1 April 1985 nance of Assad's minority Alawite sect continues to fester. Open Sunni
was used in this report.
opposition reached a watershed in February 1982 when Assad used a heavy
concentration of military force to crush an uprising in the provincial city of
Hamah. Sunnis inside Syria have been forced into sullen acquiescence to
Assad's rule, but dissidents outside the country have continued at least
limited opposition activity.
Sectarian tension has been a constant factor in Syrian politics since the
1960s. Sunnis once dominated both political and economic life in Syria.
Internecine political conflict in the first two decades after independence,
however, opened opportunities for members of the traditionally despised
Alawite sect in the military and the Bath Party to seize control of the state
and turn the tables on the entrenched Sunni establishment. Prominent
Sunni leaders have fled into exile, suffered arrest and imprisonment, cut
deals and arranged marriages to secure entry into the new elite, or lapsed
into political inactivity.
Leadership of the Sunni opposition has devolved to religious leaders in
alliance with urban Sunni merchants and artisans whose interests are
adversely affected by Alawite and Bath Party policies. The Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood has emerged as the key opposition group. Since the abortive
Hamah uprising in 1982, the Brotherhood has joined in a "National
Alliance" of Assad's Sunni rivals based outside the country.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the faction-ridden National Alliance lack an
organized political base inside Syria or the resources to overturn the
regime. Although Assad continues to regard the Brotherhood as a signifi-
cant threat, his security services have decimated its ranks. The prospects
for Sunni-instigated violence over the short term diminished early this year
when the President offered conditional amnesty to Muslim Brotherhood
members following discussions with one of its most militant factions.n
Assad is unlikely to face a major Sunni challenge as long as he remains in
command, but a Sunni bid for power following the President's incapacita-
tion or death cannot be ruled out. At a minimum, Sunni resentment of the
excesses of the Alawite security apparatus and of the social and economic
gains achieved by others at their expense is likely to contribute to political
instability over the longer term. Despite the absence of a well-placed rival
elite, sectarian, social, and economic cleavages in Syrian society will pose
continuing challenges to Assad's successors.
Secret
NESA 85-10102
June 1985
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When Assad dies, concern among the Alawite elite about Sunni discontent
probably will serve to dampen rivalries within the regime and contribute to
an orderly succession. The longevity of such a successor regime, however,
will depend in part on its ability to replicate Assad's successful combina-
tion of repression and co-optation of the Sunni community. A broad-based
popular movement or Islamic revolution appears unlikely, but in the
context of a succession crisis or in the early stages of a new regime, Sunni
officers might seek to take advantage of regime weaknesses to attempt a
coup. The Muslim Brotherhood almost certainly would attempt to instigate
civil disorders to test the staying power of Assad's successor as president.[
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Contents
Summary
Continuing Opposition Among Urban Sunnis
3
Regime Security Concerns
Foreign Policy Implications
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((tneeoroccw,ee
Boundary representation is
not necessarily authoritative
0 75
Kilometers
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Syria: Sunni Opposition tothV
Minority Alawite Regime)
President Assad has brought order to Syria through
his highly centralized and personal rule. He has built
an effective and sometimes brutal security apparatus
and has skillfully manipulated the Bath Party to
control political participation, make a large sector of
the population dependent on the regime through the
distribution of government jobs and benefits, and
legitimize his policies. Syrian politics in the 15 years
since Assad's takeover have been confined largely to
interactions within a small inner circle of presidential
advisers drawn from the military and security ser-
vices, from the government bureaucracy, and from the
Bath Party hierarchy.
Despite the appearance of stability provided by
Assad's long tenure in office, sectarian cleavages
continue to deeply divide Syrian society. Between
1976 and 1982, Assad faced a significant challenge
from Sunni opponents of his minority Alawite regime.
Militants carried out a wave of bombings and assassi-
nations of prominent Alawites, murdering several
dozen Alawite and Christian officer cadets in one
incident in Aleppo in mid-1979 and targeting Assad
himself in June 1980 in a grenade attack that killed
one of his guards. By early 1981, government spokes-
men admitted to over 300 assassinations of persons
connected with the regime. Open Sunni opposition
continued until February 1982 when the regime used
25X1 a heavy concentration of military force to crush an
uprising in the provincial city of Hamah.
economic, political, and social life.
Sunnis constitute about two-thirds of all Syrians-in
contrast to the ruling Alawites, who represent only 10
to 13 percent of the population. Historically, Sunnis
predominated in the urban elite that led the country's
Sunni resentment at the rise to power of the Alawite
minority continues to fester. To many in the Sunni
community, the Alawites are social inferiors best left
alone in their homeland in the rural, mountainous
area of northwest Syria. Most Sunnis regard Alawites
as heretics because the Alawites view Ali, the nephew
and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, as an
incarnation of God. Prior to Syrian independence in
1946, the limited educational opportunities open to
Alawites and their exclusion from avenues of social
mobility fueled a vicious cycle of Sunni prejudice and
discrimination against them. The Alawites most often
found places in Syrian society as servants, garbage
collectors, shoe-shine boys, and the like.
The collapse of Sunni dominance and the rise to
power of Alawite leaders took place during two
decades of political turmoil following Syrian indepen-
dence. The Sunni "club" of leading families had-
and lost-its chance to rule as a succession of govern-
ments in the 1950s and early 1960s proved unable to
cope with domestic problems of corruption, inefficien-
cy, and inflation, or with regional issues such as the
establishment of the state of Israel. With Syrian
politics polarized by the conflict between the old
Sunni establishment and new middle-class political
factions, Alawites rising through the Syrian officer
corps and the leftist-oriented Bath Party took control
of the government.
The Sunni Majority Under Assad
President Assad benefited initially from the political
exhaustion of rival forces in Syrian politics. Scholars
note that after the frequent changes of governments in
the years before his takeover in 1970, Assad was
greeted with relief by many Sunnis. The new Presi-
dent was viewed as a moderate pragmatist in contrast
to his more radical, short-lived predecessors and as a
leader who could end political uncertainty
Syria's Sunni majority under Assad remains political-
ly divided by enduring social cleavages and by differ-
ences over the appropriate response to Alawite domi-
nance and regime repression. Local observers of the
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Sunnis in the 1980s believe that potential leaders
among the Sunni community are split among several
France and construction firms in Syria and the Gulf
states-has taken pains to cut the President's brother
Rif`at into some of his more lucrative projects, ac-
cording to the US Embassy in Damascus.
Many religious leaders have retreated into silent
opposition to the regime or submitted to its restric-
tions on their activity. Through the Ministry of
Religious Trusts, the regime exercises tight control
over the preaching of the shaykhs.
many Sunni religious
leaders, lacking the means or the courage to oppose
the regime, have adopted the principle that "when you
subgroups.
Traditional notable families in many cases have long
since ceased to play a significant political role. Some
members of the old elite with a religious orientation
have gone into exile in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Moroc-
co, and Europe. Those drawn to the political left fled
to Iraq, Algeria, or France. Some Syrian Nasirists
remained in Egypt after 1961 when Syria broke up
the union between the two countries (the United Arab
Republic established in 1958). Many of the old nota-
ble families remained in Syria but ceased political
activity.
The landowning and mercantile elites were hard hit
by the socialist policies first implemented during
Syria's union with Egypt and subsequently continued
by Bath Party leaders in the 1960s. Nationalization
of industry and commerce and land reform stripped
the old establishment of its power. Some wealthy
Sunnis fled with their fortunes to Lebanon, Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, or Europe, while others sought various
means of survival under the more pragmatic Assad
regime.
Sunnis remain prominent in Syrian commerce. Some
Sunni families were able to protect their property
interests despite Bath Party reform efforts by care-
fully distributing land or industrial facilities to rela-
tions and trusted friends or by cutting deals with the
new elite. Prominent Sunni businessman Othman
Aidi, for example-who presides over a business
empire encompassing banks in Switzerland and
can no longer counter your enemy, take his hand and
hope that the good Lord will break it."
Sunnis willing to reach an accommodation with the
ruling Alawites are prominent at the top levels of the
government, the Bath Party, and the military and
security apparatus. Assad has maintained at least the
appearance of a multiconfessional regime by forging
political alliances with Sunnis who share the Alawites'
rural background or who have used their connections
to the new elite to rise through the ranks. Scholars
note that most Sunni officers who have risen to
conspicuous military positions during the past 20
years have come from country towns and rural areas
or from city districts inhabited by former peasants.
Chief of Staff Shihabi, for example, is from Al Bab, a
small town near Aleppo, and Minister of Defense
Talas is from Ar Rastan, a town between Hamah and
Hims. Vice President Khaddam is a Sunni, but he is
married to a woman of the Hawwash family, which
provided the leadership of the Assads' Alawite tribal
subsect in Ottoman times.
Conditions for many middle- and lower-class Sunnis
have improved under Bath Party rule, and the nature
of the community has altered as individuals have
adapted to change. We believe families uprooted from
their villages, taking up new, more secular lifestyles in
the cities, have left behind both traditions and a
politically meaningful Sunni identity. The Bath Party
and its numerous affiliated popular institutions have
supplanted the Sunni-dominated political parties of
the 1950s.
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Continuing Opposition Among Urban Sunnis
With the defeat or political co-optation of large
segments of the Sunni population, leadership of the
organized Sunni opposition to Alawite rule has de-
volved to an alliance of dissident Sunni religious
leaders and the urban merchant community. The
Syrian Muslim Brotherhood emerged as the leading
opponent of the Alawites and the Bath Party as early
as the 1960s, mobilizing popular conservative senti-
ment against the secular orientation of the new elite
on behalf of the urban merchants. Merchants resent-
ful of government interference in trade-and fearing
that Ba'thist socialism is a weapon in the hands of
long neglected and suppressed rural people to exact
revenge against the cities-have supported the Broth-
erhood and contributed to a revival of Islam as an
answer to wrenching change and the loss of unity
within the Sunni community.
Assad's massive use of force against Brotherhood-led
Sunni militants at Hamah in 1982 has forced dissi-
dent leaders to retreat from open opposition.
the Brotherhood has abandoned the emphasis it had
placed on armed struggle because its paramilitary
organization inside Syria was seriously disrupted by
the debacle at Hamah. A Muslim Brotherhood leader
said in an interview in early 1983 that the opposition
had underestimated the repressive response of the
regime. He added that the opposition would have to
adopt new tactics to avoid placing the civilian popula-
tion in a crossfire between the militants and the
government.
now in exile.
The Sunni opposition has shifted to political and
organizational activity since 1982. The Muslim
Brotherhood merged with other Islamic groups in
1980 to form an "Islamic Front" and then entered an
even broader opposition coalition in 1982 that has
taken the name "The National Alliance for the
Liberation of Syria." Leaders of the group include
Adnan Sa'd al-Din, an educator from Hamah in exile
since the early 1960s and a prominent leader of the
Muslim Brotherhood; Shaykh Muhammad al-
Bayanuni, a 41-year-old cleric from Aleppo and the
head of the "Islamic Front"; and a disparate assort-
ment of formerly prominent Sunni political leaders
Overt political activity by the Muslim Brotherhood
and the National Alliance has been confined primari-
ly to issuing press releases from Europe denouncing
the regime and outlining a liberal platform for a new
"Islamic" government.
calls for free, universal elections for a new Syrian
parliament representing all political and sectarian
factions, new presidential elections, and government
rule under Islamic law. 25X1
Muslim Brotherhood leadership suggest 25X1
that leading Sunni dissidents occupy themselves for
the most part with debates over the leadership of the
opposition coalition and the design of a future Islamic
The Muslim Brotherhood nevertheless continues to
attempt limited independent operations from bases in
Iraq.
tive headquarters from Amman to Baghdad in 1983.
Brotherhood leaders wished to reduce their vulnera-
bility to Assad's security forces-acting on the as-
sumption that the regime has comparatively greater
freedom in Jordan to initiate operations against
them-and to gain access to the inadequately pa-
trolled Syrian-Iraqi border to conduct infiltration and
exfiltration of personnel and materiel.
Several regional states provide at least indirect sup-
port for the Muslim Brotherhood, while funds and
materiel come from a network of sympathizers and
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members throughout the Middle East and Europe.
Iraqi authorities provide camps for
training in paramilitary tactics in addition to giving
the Brotherhood safehaven and freedom of movement.
Brotherhood officials
are allowed to move into and out of Jordan, Saudi
Arabia, and the Gulf states to maintain contacts with
their adherents, although their political activities are
restricted. The organization acquires arms from the
open and black market in Europe with funds provided
25X1 by wealthy sympathizers and mandatory donations
from members.
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Regime Security Concerns
The Assad regime continues to regard the Muslim
Brotherhood as a significant threat.
Syrian security forces noted
a resurgence in Brotherhood activities last fall when
antigovernment pamphlets appeared in Damascus,
Aleppo, Hamah, and Hims after a major Islamic
holiday.
senior personnel changes in Syrian Military Intelli-
gence-including the replacement of the official re-
sponsible for security in the Damascus area-
following the escape from a facility in Damascus of
prisoners affiliated with the Brotherhood in early
September. In early December last year, Rif `at al-
Assad, acting in his new capacity as Vice President
for Security Affairs, told a group of senior security
officials that he wanted more attention paid to radical
religious groups operating in Syria,
Despite the government's concern, the prospects for
Sunni violence in the short term diminished when the
regime announced early this year a conditional am-
nesty for members of the "Fighting Vanguard" fac-
tion of the Muslim Brotherhood. The "Fighting Van-
guard" (al-Taliah al-Mugatilah) is the name adopted
by a younger, more militant wing of the Brotherhood
when it broke with the more conservative leadership
25X1 in late 1981 and followed Adnan Uqlah, a civil
engineer and former military officer, into the ill-fated
25X1 Hamah uprising.
security officials see the amnesty offer as a
means of monitoring the militants' activities more
closely and bringing them under tighter control, al-
though they have no illusions about the prospects for
total compliance with the terms of the amnesty. F_
The amnesty offer to Brotherhood members is charac-
teristic of Assad's carrot and stick tactics toward his
Sunni opponents since the Hamah uprising. In the
summer of 1982, only months after the regime put
down the insurrection, Assad sent Chief of Staff
General Shihabi to Saudi Arabia to try to reach an
accommodation with Muslim Brotherhood political
the regime again offered to drop charges against
Brotherhood members abroad willing to surrender to
Syrian authorities. Meanwhile, the security forces
continued to round up militants inside Syria. F---]
Assad's amnesty offer to the Fighting Vanguard
faction in January almost certainly was designed to
advance his broader political and foreign policy objec-
tives as well as to deal with the immediate security
issue.
Assad wanted to demonstrate his regime's political
stability and boost his popularity with the Sunni
community before the presidential referendum in
February. In addition, Assad probably hoped to re-
duce the possibility that PLO Chairman Arafat might
exploit longstanding Fatah-Muslim Brotherhood
links to stir up trouble in Syria in retaliation for
Syrian operations against Palestinian moderates and
approach to negotiations with Israel
Jordanians supporting the Jordan/PLO talks on an
In our judgment, Assad is unlikely to face a major
challenge from the Sunni opposition as long as he
remains in command. His effective use of repression
has deprived his Sunni opponents of an organized base
inside Syria. His aging Sunni political rivals-in exile
since the 1960s-are divided by ideological differ-
ences and have failed to develop a younger generation
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of successors. Within the broader Sunni community,
appreciation of the stability provided by Assad's rule,
while less than enthusiastic, has had an apparent
dampening effect on the ability of Assad's opponents
to drum up mass support. Despite heightened tension
at the time of Assad's hospitalization in November
1983 and the power struggle among rivals in Assad's
inner circle in early 1984, we detected no indication of
a Sunni effort to take advantage of Assad's temporary
has departed the scene.'
Assad's death, however, will leave Syria without an
heir apparent-unless he takes the uncharacteristic
and unlikely step of naming his successor-and will
set the stage for a struggle for power at senior levels of
the regime. Assad's watchdog security services that
check dissent within the military are comprised of
networks based on personal loyalties already under
strain because of conflict over the succession issue.
The excesses of the regime's security forces, official
corruption, the poor state of Syria's economy, and
Syrian isolation in the Arab world represent potential-
ly powerful themes available to a Sunni contender
seeking popular support for a bid to exploit divisions
in the regime and end Alawite dominance once Assad
Sunni challenge to a new regime.
In the short run, fear of a Sunni backlash against the
Alawites probably will contribute to an orderly suc-
cession. Assad's lieutenants are likely to subordinate
personal rivalries to ensure their survival, in our
judgment. Regime leaders have a common interest in
heading off an internecine struggle and a coup or the
possible collapse of political order. Short-term conti-
nuity in regime policy and the survival of a regime
coalition representing both Alawites and rural-based
Sunnis-together with the disarray within the Sunni
opposition-probably will forestall an immediate
Nevertheless, a successor regime will have difficulty
establishing its legitimacy and consolidating control
over the longer term. The cleavage in the social base
of Syrian politics between the still relatively new,
rural-based elite of Alawites and their Sunni allies on
the one hand and the urban-centered Sunni opposition
on the other will continue to offer Sunni dissidents
opportunities to challenge a new government.
We believe a Sunni challenge to Assad's successors in
the long term probably would take the form of
terrorism or insurrection in provincial urban centers.
The available information on the activities of the
National Alliance suggests that the Sunni opposition's
effort to build a broad-based coalition has had only
limited success. The Muslim Brotherhood, the key
organized group within the coalition, on the other
hand, has a decentralized structure that is more
effective for limited operations against government
authority than for a coordinated mass movement. The
Brotherhood historically has failed to advance a pro-
grammatic solution to social or economic issues or the
problems of government, but its formulas and slo-
gans-"God is our end; His Messenger our example;
the Koran our constitution; the jihad our path; and
death for God's cause our highest desire"-have
helped keep alive conservative Islamic resentment of
Alawite dominance and stimulate narrow-based chal-
lenges to Bath Party rule.
A Sunni challenge to Assad's successors in the form of
an attempted coup is also possible over the longer
term. Sunni military officers are well placed to take
advantage of any weakening of Alawite defenses
against a challenge. Assad's successors may prove less
adept at constructing and maintaining the security
"wall" around Damascus that Assad erected to pre-
vent a repetition of the cycle of coups and counter-
coups that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. Assad's
reliance on officers personally loyal to him yet antago-
nistic to each other has created a system that will be
difficult to maintain once he departs the scene.F__1
We believe a Sunni challenge to the new regime
would be unlikely to take the form of a broad-based
popular movement or Islamic revolution. To succeed,
mass opposition pitting Sunnis against the new regime
would require breaking the coalition of Alawites and
rural Sunnis, destroying military discipline and Bath
Party identification, and detaching peasants, workers,
and the salaried middle class from their dependence
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on state and party institutions. These groups would be
unlikely to favor a "revolution" bringing an elite
allied with landlords and wealthy merchants back to
power or an enhanced role for the clergy or religious
law in public life. In contrast to Algeria, Iran, or
Afghanistan, the Syrian Bath Party has an indige-
nous national character that deprives an opposition
movement of the opportunity to fuse revolutionary
Islam with nationalist resentment at a foreign or
foreign-dominated regime.
Foreign Policy Implications
Assad's internal security concerns, including his per-
ception of a continuing threat from the Sunni opposi-
tion, are a significant element in his design of Syrian
foreign policy, in our view. Syrian national interests-
avoiding another disastrous defeat in a conflict with
Israel, obtaining Soviet military aid, extracting Arab
financial support-continue to shape policy, but As-
sad's overriding interest is the survival of the regime.
Domestic political issues narrow his policy options.
Continued Syrian support for international terrorism
is significantly influenced by perceived threats to the
stability of the regime. The principal targets of
Syrian-sponsored terrorist operations consistently
have included Assad's political opponents. Muslim
Brotherhood leader Issam al-Attar, in exile in West
Germany, was the target of at least five assassination
attempts by the regime in 1980-82, one of which
resulted in the death of his wife. General Muhammad
Umran, one of Assad's leading rivals, was murdered
in Lebanon in 1972. Former Prime Minister Salah
Bitar was assassinated in Paris in 1980, probably as a
25X1 signal by the regime that it could reach its opponents
even in distant exile.
Assad's determination to maintain Syrian preemi-
nence in Lebanon almost certainly is reinforced by
fear that Sunni opponents of his regime might use
bases there to mount operations into Syria. We lack
specific details, but US Embassy officers in Damascus
believe that many Sunni dissidents fled to the Tripoli
area in North Lebanon after the Hamah uprising in
25X1 1982, and Beirut has long been a haven for exiled
Syrian politicians and dissident intellectuals.
Issam aI-Attai{
Assad's support for Iran against Iraq is at least in part
the consequence of his conviction that Baghdad sup-
ported the Sunni radical-led violence against his
regime between 1976 and 1982. Assad must also be
aware that the Iraqis continue to support the Muslim
Brotherhood, Bath Party leaders who split with
Assad in the 1960s, and other Sunni dissidents.
Syria's uncompromising position on the Arab-Israeli
conflict would be likely to persist regardless of wheth-
er Alawites or Sunnis ruled in Damascus, but Sunni
opposition to Alawite predominance almost certainly
is a significant factor militating against moderation of
the Syrian position. Assad probably believes that a
reversal of the Syrian position would open the regime
to charges that the minority Alawites had sold out
Syria and the Arabs to Israel. Rumors of common
cause between Syria's Alawite regime and the Gov-
ernment of Israel are a staple of conspiracy thinking
even among sophisticated officials and intellectuals in
the Arab world. The legitimacy of Assad's regime is
based in part on its credentials in the anti-Zionist and
Arab nationalist cause, and the need for legitimacy of
his successor is likely to dictate a similar position.
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Appendix
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood
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bly is in the tens of thousands.
The size of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood is impossible
to determine. During the late 1940s the organization
numbered about 10,000. One scholar estimates that
its membership before the Hamah uprising in 1982
was no more than 5,000, but he notes that regime
repression since then has almost certainly reduced
that figure. The number of "fellow travelers" proba-
The Brotherhood has operated inside Syria as a loose
front rather than a close-knit organization. In the
words of its spokesmen, the Syrian Muslim Brother-
hood conceives of itself as a "comprehensive move-
ment that, like Islam itself, applies to all dimensions
of life and speaks to the heart of the community."F-
the separate branches.
To protect its security the Muslim Brotherhood em-
ploys a cell structure. Local mosques provide recruit-
ing grounds and meeting places. The localized basis of
recruitment and ideological training has contributed
to a proliferation of groups with slightly differing
ideologies, differences among leaders from various
urban centers, and variations in the tactics adopted by
Egyptian Muslim Brothers touring Syria.
Origins
The Muslim Brotherhood came to Syria in the 1930s.
It was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna
as an underground society dedicated to the end of
colonial rule and the establishment of an Islamic
state. The first Syrian adherents were students of
Islamic law who had attended courses at Cairo's al-
Azhar University or who had been won over by
The Muslim Brotherhood fits a pattern of urban
social societies first sponsored in Syria during the
19th century by Christian missionaries seeking to
foster social change according to Western cultural
norms. Adapted as Islamic welfare societies and
unlike traditional brotherhoods and guilds, the
jam'iyah organizations were not built around particu-
lar occupations. They drew on diverse segments of
urban society and espoused broad cultural and politi-
cal objectives, engaging in projects such as providing
new schools and health care. In part, Arab national-
ism had its origins in one variant of the jam'iyah-the
political societies formed around the turn of the
century by members of the elite. The Muslim Broth-
erhood drew on another variant of the jam'iyah-the
Islamic societies formed among the middle classes in
urban areas.
The precursor to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood
appeared first in Aleppo in the late 1930s. The
organization called itself "The House of al-Arqam," a
reference to one of the earliest converts to Islam. This
organization shifted its center to Damascus in 1944
with the approach of independence, adopted the name
Muslim Brotherhood, and elected its first Superinten-
dant General.
Throughout the first decades after independence the
fortunes of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood fluctuat-
ed inversely to the fortunes of the urban merchants
and artisans who were its principal constituency.
Initially, the Brotherhood languished as postwar prof-
iteering and speculation enriched the trading commu-
nity. The creation of Israel and the defeat of the Arab
armies, however, disrupted extensive and longstand-
ing commercial ties between Damascus and Palestine
and gave a new impetus to the movement. In the
1950s, Nasirism drew away parts of the Brother-
hood's urban base, but the organization recovered
again in the early 1960s in response to the challenge
posed by the rural-oriented Bath Party.
Social Characteristics
The earliest leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in
Syria commonly were from families of the "men of
religion." Mustafa al-Sibai, the first Superintendant
General of the society and its leader from 1945 to
1957 came from a family that provided the preachers
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(khatibs) for the Grand Mosque in Hims. His succes-
sor, Issam al-Attar-who guided the organization
until a split in its ranks in 1972 but continues to play a
leadership role-was the prayer leader (imam) at the
mosque of Damascus University. Current leaders of
the Brotherhood and its allied organization, including
Said Hawwa and Muhammad al-Bayanuni, are "men
of religion" and products of the religious education
25X1 program at Damascus University instituted by Super-
intendant General Sibai.
Scholars note that the religious class with which the
Muslim Brothers are associated is not very large in
Syria. According to one study, whereas in Iran in
1979 there was roughly one mullah for every 308
Iranians, in Syria the comparable figure was one
mullah for every 2,217 Syrians. The statistics almost
certainly are imperfect, but the ratio accords with the
25X1 discernible absence of men of religion from many of
Syria's villages.
The Syrian religious class, however, is closely linked
to the much larger urban class of artisans and small
traders that provides the bulk of the Brotherhood's
membership. As a rule, Syrian men of religion cannot
live on the income they derive from religious service.
Frequently they engage in handicrafts or petty trade.
25X1 Many of them are drapers, stationers, booksellers, or
perfume vendors.
Urban small tradesmen and artisans were and still are
the most religiously oriented class in Syria, according
to scholars. They largely observe the precepts of
Islam. Numerically, this class is a significant propor-
tion of Syrian society. The old elite of large landown-
ers and their mercantile allies was so small in number
that it was overthrown with relative ease by the
Ba'thists in the 1960s. By contrast, the small traders
and artisans numbered in 1970 nearly a quarter
million. With their dependents, they easily accounted
for one-sixth of the Syrian population.
The Militant Factions
In the late 1960s younger Brotherhood members of
the Aleppo and Hamah branches, shaken by the Arab
military defeat of 1967, agitated for more militant
opposition to the regime than the leadership under
al-Attar in Damascus would accept. In addition to
generational differences and the regional peculiarities
of the branches, economic disparities might have
accounted for the ideological variances within the
organization. Damascus, as the seat of government,
had been more favored economically than the provin-
cial cities
The Muslim Brotherhood's new militants were above
all younger and better educated than the more tradi-
tional leadership. Adnan Sa'd al-Din, a key figure in
the Brotherhood leadership, said in an interview that
the militant activists were students and intellectuals
in their teens, twenties, and thirties, daring to the
point of recklessness. According to one scholar, the
militants were university students, schoolteachers,
engineers, physicians, and the like. One study cites
Syrian Government figures for 1,384 activists arrest-
ed between 1976 and 1981, among whom at least 28
percent were students, 8 percent were schoolteachers,
and 13 percent were members of the professions,
including 79 engineers, 57 physicians, 25 lawyers, and
10 pharmacists.
In 1968 irreconcilable militants led by Marwan Ha-
did, a 34-year-old agronomist and the son of a small
agricultural entrepreneur from Hamah, left Syria for
Jordan, where they were trained by Palestinians of
Arafat's Fatah organization. Hadid's doctrines-that
there could be no compromise between Islamic and
non-Islamic or anti-Islamic systems of government
and that the Syrian Ba'thist regime should be dis-
lodged by armed rebellion-drew numerous followers.
Hadid himself died in prison in 1976, but "Hadidists"
operating under various names were responsible for
much of the antiregime violence in the late 1970s.LI
With the appearance of the more militant Sunni
radical factions, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria has
evolved into an even more loosely organized front. In
the 1970s the acts of violence were attributed to
groups operating under various names-the Youth of
Muhammad, the Marwan Hadid Group, the al-
Mujahidun, and the Islamic Liberation Party-while
more recently the militant faction has taken the name
Fighting Vanguard. In some cases, acts attributed to
the Muslim Brotherhood by the government probably
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were carried out by Sunni radical splinter groups with
little or no affiliation to the formal Muslim Brother-
hood hierarchy, but spokesmen for the militants more
closely attached to the Brotherhood took credit for
them. President Assad's amnesty offer to the militant
faction last January probably was designed to widen
the splits among the various factions of the Brother-
hood.
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