--- title: "Political Transition in Post-Assad Syria: An Analysis of Discourses" slug: "political-transition-in-post-assad-syria-an-analysis-of-discourses" post_type: "post" published_at: "2026-02-05T12:50:31+01:00" modified_at: "2026-02-23T15:23:47+01:00" author: "Tarek" url: "https://cihrs.org/political-transition-in-post-assad-syria-an-analysis-of-discourses/?lang=en" category: - "Forum Papers" post_tag: - "Forum Papers 28" country: - "Syria" field: - "Studies and Research" --- # Political Transition in Post-Assad Syria: An Analysis of Discourses ## **Introduction** There have been and continue to be shades of activist Islam that are coloured by their various contexts. My use of the term ‘activist Islam’ is deliberate. I oppose the use of the term ‘political Islam’ because I do not know of any ideology, anywhere, that is *not* political. Everyone is allowed to partake of the political; it is only when a group says it wants to derive a moral system and political guide from religion that we say no. The problem, then, is not politicisation per se, but how political and intellectual practice is conducted within each ideological movement. At that point, we can evaluate it and distinguish the bad from the good. Much of my research and that of others—Hossam al-Din Darwish,[\[1\]](#_ftn1) Olivier Roy,[\[2\]](#_ftn2) François Burgat,[\[3\]](#_ftn3) Asef Bayat,[\[4\]](#_ftn4) and Rachid Haj Saleh[\[5\]](#_ftn5)—has criticised the culturalist approach to Islam and its movements. This approach starts by isolating a political movement and then understanding it solely through culturalist methods. So, for example, if a movement interprets the Quran in one way, it is violent, however, if it interprets scripture in another way, it is a peaceful, Sufi movement. The truth is that Islamist movements are coloured by their context: when the context is liberal, they become liberal; when it is militarised and oppressive, they become jihadi and oppressive.[\[6\]](#_ftn6) When Salafism initially emerged in Syria, it was primarily a scholarly movement led by Sheikh Nasir al-Din al-Albani and made no political appeals. When the Syrian regime began to repress the movement, however, young Salafis transformed into jihadi Salafis. I stress, again, that I am against any culturalist analysis. We must link the cultural and the religious to the economic, the social, and the political. I would like to examine the Syrian model looking at various discourses around today’s political transition. I will focus on the discourse of President Ahmad al-Sharaa as an example of an Islamist discourse and the discourse of what I call ‘symbolic liberals.’ Before that, I will discuss how we should understand the current, Islamist-led transitional phase in Syria. ## **The Political Transition** How can we judge the transition phase without asking where it is headed? Transition to what? So far, we have essentially seen the end of the Syrian regime’s extremely violent and bloody phase and the beginning of a phase that will likely be less violent. Many questions must be answered in order to determine where Syria is going. Will it overcome extreme poverty and total destruction and move toward a functioning economy? Will it be a neoliberal economy, or one with domestic and foreign individual investment supported by a social welfare economy? Will it transition to a democratic system—and I currently see no better option, despite the crisis of liberal democracy the world is experiencing today—or, as President al-Sharaa calls it somewhat ambiguously, ‘a state of law’? Let me focus here on two indicators that are more closely related to the socio-political order than the economic system. The first indicator: Where is the compass pointing on freedoms? Not just basic freedoms—freedom of association, expression, worship, and belief, including freedom of conscience—but also the individual’s freedom to be in the public sphere. This implies a minimal (and no further) state interest in public morals. I remind you that the role of society and the state is to ensure that society agrees on a conception of justice. This conception of justice has implications for the distribution of wealth, equality, and non-discrimination, but the conception of what is ‘good’ is left to individuals and groups. Whether a woman wants to wear a hijab, a niqab, or a miniskirt is all part of one’s conception of good. People have the right to choose the conception of good for their own lives, and whether they want to fast and pray or go to a bar. The state, then, should impose no more than a baseline of public morality, or what we understand as public decency. In liberal language, we call it the public good. The second indicator is the issue of citizenship, which is linked to equality. So far, the new leadership’s position on freedoms and equality is reasonable in its broad outlines, while emphasising that the massacres perpetrated in the coastal area and Sweida are horrific, though they cannot be attributed to a central decision by the political authority, according to the United Nations report on these events. The important thing, in my view, is how a group that once adopted dogmatic Salafism is engaging with Syrian society or, in other words, being coloured by its context. Every day, we would see developments that are close to Syrian Islam in the general sense. Syrian society is religiously diverse, and by that I do not just mean that there are Christians, Sunnis, and Alawites; diversity exists within Sunni Islam itself. So we have some indicators of what Syrian religiosity is. Will the interaction between President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s activist Islam and the people generate significant positive energy? For example, after furniture was taken from public institutions in Damascus, preachers at mosques—or at least five major mosques—asserted that this was forbidden and that what had been taken must be returned. We saw people outside the Zayd Ibn Thabit Mosque, which is next to my grandfather’s house—and there are photos of this—returning the refrigerator, chairs, and so on. There is thus flexibility within movement Islam to conform to a given context and elevate it; in other words, adaptation elevates rather than compromises. If this happens, there is cause for optimism. The major indicators we are following in Syria today are indeed important, and especially under this administration. I will give another example of gradations. Today the two biggest political movements, which led the operations room, are Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Ahrar al-Sham. Both are Salafi, but today HTS—as my friends who know the details are inside Syria inform me—has begun to accept this flexibility in religious law, as expressed in statements by Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, the number two person in the new authority. Here we see the difference between a movement that exercises direct power (HTS) and another (Ahrar al-Sham) that is casting aspersions on it. This suggests that when activist Islam comes to power, it begins to understand the meaning and importance of context better than someone who looks on from the outside. ## **Islamist Discourse: The Example of President Ahmad al-Sharaa** Although I monitor, hour by hour, what is happening in post-Assad Syria, especially when it comes to the performance of the political and military leadership and the government, I see in some statements and actions of this leadership clarity, and others that are ambiguous and equivocal. The numerous televised interviews with President al-Sharaa may have clarified some matters, but they left others hazy. Some of this can be read between the lines and some remain unspoken and undiscussed. I will offer my reading of the spoken and unspoken. Al-Sharaa speaks of his comprehensive vision for a Syrian civilian transition and of expanding the scope of consultation within the framework of the constitutional declaration, from a Syrian National Congress representing all components of the Syrian people to the proposed People’s Assembly. It is clear here that he is referring to Syria’s ideological, religious, and ethnic components. Al-Sharaa speaks of a ‘new Syria’ that will pose no threat to its neighbours, indicating that all disputes with neighbours or major powers will be resolved through diplomacy and a return to the fold of the international community. In an interview with the BBC, al-Sharaa was asked about his use of violence in Idlib to extend HTS’s control. In response, he resorted to legalistic language, saying that the violence was legal given the assault on public institutions there. When asked about the difference between what the Taliban had done and what HTS did in Idlib and would do in the new Syria, he said that there is a sociological and cultural difference between the two countries, explaining that Afghanistan is made up of tribes, while Syria is a predominantly urban country. I was struck by al-Sharaa’s humility in the interview. He repeatedly stated that he could not judge certain matters, that his personal opinion was unimportant, and that the decision was up to legal experts, the people, and the constitution. At the same time, he expressed a degree of pride, twice stating that what mattered to him was that Syrians were convinced and believed him, regardless of whether others outside Syria would. I am interested here in commenting on the emerging future social agenda for Syria. In the interview, al-Sharaa did not once use the terms ‘Sharia’ or ‘Islamic state.’ He addressed the journalist in terms resembling what the American philosopher John Rawls calls public reason—that is, a language and moral argument shared by all Syrians and comprehensible even to a British journalist. When asked whether the new Syria would respect women’s rights, he evaded the question, reminding the journalist that the priority today was to rebuild Syria for all its components, men and women, and to restore citizenship to those deprived of it for security reasons, including many Syrian families residing abroad. Nevertheless, his conciliatory rhetoric with the West caught my attention. He did not offer the journalist a direct critique of double standards—for example, criticising sending weapons to the genocidal state of Israel to kill women and children in Gaza—but limited himself to Syrian-Syrian comparisons. When al-Sharaa was asked about social issues and his political vision, he used terms like ‘constitution,’ ‘law,’ ‘return to the people,’ and ‘the people decide,’ all of which can be filed under liberal democracy, although he avoided using that precise term. It seems clear that al-Sharaa adheres to an Islamic school of thought that does not seek to return to universals, but rather uses expressions more familiar to the Arab-Islamic field of discourse or an Islamic lexicon (*parler musulman*), as François Burgat puts it.[\[7\]](#_ftn7) I agree with Burgat that we should not object to the use of a local rather than universal lexicon; what matters here is the content, not the vocabulary. When al-Sharaa was asked if he supported a Syrian democratic state, he refused to use the word ‘democracy,’ replacing it with the concept of ‘a state of law, constitution, and equality among Syrians.’ When asked about issues such as permitting the sale of alcohol or women’s dress, he dodged the question, indicating that such decisions are the remit of legal experts. It would have been preferable for him to say that public freedoms are guaranteed, that the state should not interfere in people’s religious practices, and that everything else is determined by the law. On the positive side, President al-Sharaa believes in some distinction between religion and politics. He refers to the (admittedly vague) concept of a civil state, in which the law has the final word on the political, while the preacher has the final say on the religious. He deliberately avoids the use of universal liberal terms such as democracy, citizenship, freedom of expression, freedom of association, individual freedom, and secularism. This may be attributable to his view that double standards are at play when liberals use some terms like ‘democracy,’ or to the notorious authoritarian use of other terms like ‘secularism.’ While al-Sharaa’s discourse presents a promising vision of a legal-political system that represents all Syrians, it is vague on the question of moralising the public sphere. Nonetheless, President al-Sharaa does not realise the importance of this issue for large groups of Syrians who have historically mistrusted Islamists due to the latter’s equivocal positions on public morality, in a climate of sharp polarisation between Islamists and secularists that derailed the Arab Spring. Their scepticism is legitimate, as some hardline Islamists do adopt a discourse that blurs the line between evangelising and politics. There is a big difference between a preacher who calls for the prohibition of alcohol consumption and the imposition of the hijab on women, and a politician who must consider citizens’ diverse conceptions of the good and leave the matter to the people. Everything an individual prefers in food, drink, clothing, and lifestyle is part of their own personal conception of the good. I thus believe that al-Sharaa’s discourse in this respect was unwise, given the ambiguity and lack of clarity it left. Distinguishing the conception of justice, which should unite all Syrians, from diverse conceptions of the good is crucial. Al-Sharaa should have clarified his vision for Syria’s future here, rather than simply stating that the constitution and law will decide the matter. It is precisely this ambiguity in discourse that led sceptics to see the statement issued by the military command in the first month of the revolution’s victory, which prohibited the harming of any civilian in public spaces due to their dress or behaviour (tacitly understood to be a prohibition on harassing unveiled women), as a mere tactical move that does not reflect the outlook of the new Syrian leadership. Although some criticism could be directed at Sharaa’s rhetoric, I believe that, given his humility and rich experience in the Idlib ‘statelet,’ he is a pragmatist who shifts and adjusts his ideas according to the context (Far worse is a person who claims to be unchanging.) In sociological terms, al-Sharaa can be described as a reflexive person, and this is an important quality. We often find this pattern among new Islamist movements that have undergone a positive transformation after entering the political fray. The influence of the Turkish model is evident, and indeed, a delegation from the ruling Turkish Justice and Development Party visited Syria and opened an office in Damascus to help the new regime benefit from the Turkish experience. Despite President Erdogan’s authoritarian tendencies, Turkey’s experience shows how to achieve a distinction between religion and politics and guarantee state neutrality toward the diverse, conflicting conceptions of the good in society. The problem lies in the exclusive use of a local or Islamic lexicon, which does not create a shared intellectual and political space with the universal other. Ahmad al-Sharaa understands that Syria, rising from its ashes like a phoenix, is in dire need of the international community for its reconstruction. He calls on the world to stand in solidarity with Syria, and ‘human solidarity’ is a universal concept, but he avoids using other universalist terms associated with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human values, such as democracy, human rights, women’s rights, freedom of expression, and freedom of association. This reduction of universal, humanitarian discourse to economic interest is unfortunate. ## **The Discourse of Symbolic Liberals** In my recent book, *Against Symbolic Liberalism: A Plea for Dialogic Sociology*,[\[8\]](#_ftn8) I show how the writings of numerous social scientists and other knowledge producers (journalists, academics, influencers, etc.) have established a perspective I call symbolic liberalism. In downplaying the importance of social justice and overemphasising the universality of human rights, these liberals have distorted the understanding of justice, leading to the imposition of a single conception of the good, which should be pluralistic. Symbolic liberals are found in both the Global North and the Global South, a reflection of a form of global convergence, particularly in post-colonial environments. Let us examine how symbolic liberals view the post-Assad Syrian regime, as it reveals much about the portrayal of secularism as antithetical to religion and demonstrates a flawed practice of political liberalism, at least as conceived by John Rawls. My previous research has shown the influence of French-style militant secularism on some of the Arab secular left,[\[9\]](#_ftn9) and on symbolic liberals’ efforts to impose their unreasonable interpretations of secularism and the conservatism prevalent in our societies, especially when they come to power. Three features of this liberalism can be observed. First, as the Syrian philosopher Hussam al-Din Darwish aptly put it,[\[10\]](#_ftn10) symbolic liberals cannot imagine a conservative revolution. If it is not progressive, it must be condemned. Consequently, if they dislike the conservative elite leading the transition, they seek to delegitimise the revolution, even if this means allying themselves with the military of the old regime, as we saw in Egypt. For such liberals, all political parties can change their platforms—all except Islamists, who are seen as Sunni fascists[\[11\]](#_ftn11) or simply jihadis[\[12\]](#_ftn12) and are understood only as disciples of early twentieth-century thinkers such as Sayyid Qutb and Abu al-A’la al-Mawdudi. Symbolic liberals fail to see how even Salafi jihadi groups have undergone intellectual transformations, as evidenced by the critical writings of Abu Musab al-Suri, Abu Yazan al-Shami, and Abu Mahmoud al-Filistini over the past decade, and how these transformations influenced the transition of the Nusra Front (HTS) into a more moderate, pragmatic Islamist organisation. For them, Islam must be reformed to become a revolutionary force; otherwise, it is merely ‘hijacking’ the revolution. They show little interest in how everyday Islam and Syrian civil society negotiated their presence in the face of ultra-conservative transitional political forces. This lack of engagement reflects this group’s alienation from Syrian society. Since they mostly live outside Syria, they have overlooked numerous testimonies shared by Syrian researchers on social media describing visiting Syria and how utterly different it was than they imagined prior to the visit, especially when they witnessed the relative optimism of Syrians, despite the poverty and harsh living conditions of the post-Assad era. Second, the philosophical models of symbolic liberals are uninterested in contributions from the social sciences. For example, some continue to reductively view events in Sweida through a mere sectarian lens (Sunnis versus Druze), ignoring the work of prominent Syrian scholars on the region’s Bedouin population, such as Haian Dukhan and Dawn Chatty,[\[13\]](#_ftn13) who likened events in Sweida to the dynamics in Darfur (herders versus farmers). Dukhan and Chatty stress the need to consider the history of external incitement, along with the current economic crisis and global warming, to understand intergroup tensions. Interpreting such conflicts primarily through a sectarian-ethnic lens only exacerbates them. Symbolic liberals do not care that their models are incompatible with emerging realities. For example, their view of the current Syrian regime’s political economy as merely a neoliberal economy designed to attract Gulf investment needs to be broadened; it is also a thoroughly weakened regime calling for solidarity contributions from Syrian expatriates and local businesspeople. The Syrian Development Fund established in August, for example, has already raised $64 million, while the Loyalty to Idlib campaign raised $205 million in a single day (26 September 2025). The new Syrian government has also launched a national initiative to combat poverty. The classical Marxist view of political economy, despite its analytical importance, cannot grasp the significance of Marcel Mauss’s model of gift-giving in society. Even if the prospects for curbing the excesses of a neoliberal, investor-led economy remain unclear, nothing precludes the rise of a social, cooperative, and community-rooted economy emerging in Syria alongside neoliberalism. Third, the writing style of symbolic liberals reflects a high degree of certainty; it is typically highly emotional and wed to the logic of identity politics in group formation (that is, an in-group defining itself by excluding the out-group). This ideological certainty seeks to eliminate rather than engage with opponents. And all this as we navigate a transition period and the new Syrian regime sends mixed signals, some of them positive—the opening of prisons, the reduction of bureaucratic corruption, the establishment of a Syrian Development Fund and a transitional justice committee—and others negative—massacres in minority-populated areas (some fuelled by disaffected grassroots movements, others linked to the misconduct of the new regime’s security services), the lack of a serious national dialogue, the delay in legalising political parties, and mere cosmetic diversity in government and key positions. Despite the opacity of the situation, the analyses of symbolic liberals lack precision and humility in language. The use of linguistic qualifiers such as ‘perhaps,’ ‘likely,’ and ‘so far’ would allow for adjustments in interpretation rather than pretending that one’s initial analysis was prescient. This is why data on public opinion, such as the Arab Opinion Index, compiled by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, is essential. The findings of the recent AOI survey in Syria, based on 3,690 interviews, contradict much of the analysis of symbolic liberal observers of Syria today. According to the index, most Syrians (fifty-six per cent) are confident that the government is moving in the right direction, compared to twenty-five per cent who say it is moving in the wrong direction; sixty-one per cent support a democratic system. While the survey shows that sectarian tensions are widespread (eighty-five per cent), eighty-three per cent of Syrians want to live together as a whole. ## **Conclusion** In the foreseeable future, the fundamental socio-political issue is how the new regime will deal with public morality, individual freedoms, and a pluralistic conception of the good. The behaviour of liberals and conservatives will be decisive in determining whether the debate on these issues will be dialogic or belligerent. The real danger does not necessarily stem from conservative Islamic ideology, but from authoritarianism. While it is imperative to remind political regimes of their obligation to protect citizens’ rights in a pluralistic society (particularly the balance between freedoms and equality)—all of which constitute a conception of justice—authoritarianism cannot be confronted by imposing a hegemonic conception of the good. Rather, it requires negotiating the expression of diverse conceptions of the good within a mode of public reason (dialogic debate that uses arguments understandable to everyone, regardless of their religion or affiliation) and ensuring that they can coexist. Here, my criticism of symbolic liberals is harsher because I expect them, as social scientists, philosophers, and liberals, to imbue the debate with greater rationality, not to shut it down completely. In conclusion, I am allergic to the overly general term ‘political Islam’ because I believe it treats ‘activist Islam’ as a mummified relic. However, we cannot view it as static, especially since the 2011 Arab Spring. Comparing its performance to that of activist nationalism, activist leftism, and activist authoritarianism, we find that the latter built authoritarian regimes decorated with a handful of quixotic parties. Maybe activist Islam in certain places is better than anything else. I am thinking of the Ennahda Movement in Tunisia compared to ostensibly leftist parties that have defended local authoritarianism and the barrel bombs the Assad regime dropped on the Syrian people. Let us always use the same yardstick to evaluate all trends and make no exceptions in our study of Islamist movements. [\[1\]](#_ftnref1) Hossam al-Din Darwish, *Fi al-Mafahim al-Kathifa: al-‘Ilmaniya, al-Islam (al-Siyasi), Tajdid al-Khitab al-Dini* (Arab Network for Research and Publishing, 2021) [\[2\]](#_ftnref2) Olivier Roy, *Le Djihad et La Mort* (Seuil, 2016). [\[3\]](#_ftnref3) François Burgat, *Fahm al-Islam al-Siyasi* (Dar al-Saqi, 2018). [\[4\]](#_ftnref4) Asef Bayat, *Post-Islamism: The Changing Faces of Political Islam* (Oxford University Press, 2013). [\[5\]](#_ftnref5) Rachid Haj Saleh, “Ta’ammulat fi al-Fikr al-Akhlaqi al-‘Arabi al-Mu‘asir: Bahth fi al-‘Alaqa bayn al-Akhlaq wa-l-Siyasa,” *Tabayyun* 46 (2023): 7–47. [\[6\]](#_ftnref6) Mohammed A. Bamyeh, *Lifeworlds of Islam: The Pragmatics of a Religion* (Oxford University Press, 2019). [\[7\]](#_ftnref7) François Burgat, *Fahm al-Islam al-Siyasi* (Dar al-Saqi, 2018). [\[8\]](#_ftnref8) Sari Hanafi, *Against Symbolic Liberalism: A Plea for Dialogic Sociology* (Liverpool University Press, 2025). [\[9\]](#_ftnref9) Sari Hanafi, “The Transformation of the Discourse on Secularism/the Civil State in Arab Academic Writings Post Arab Spring,” *Philosophy and Society* 35, no. 3 (2024): 625–644. [\[10\]](#_ftnref10) Hossam al-Din Darwish, *Fi Falsafat al-I‘tiraf wa-Siyasat al-Huwiya: Naqd al-Muqaraba al-Thaqafawiya li-l-Thaqafa al-‘Arabiya al-Islamiya* (Mominoun Without Borders, 2023). [\[11\]](#_ftnref11) Maurice Ayek, “al-Harb al-Ahliya al-Suriya fi Tawriha al-Thani: An Nihayat Suriya wa-Khiyarat Mustaqbal ‘al-Aghyar’ Kharijaha,” *Al-Jumhuriya* (22 August 2025). [\[12\]](#_ftnref12) Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, “Suriya bayn Thalath Madaris li-l-Hukm wa-l-Siyasa: al-Haja li-Madrasa Mughayir Taqum ‘ala al-Ta‘addudiya wa-Tadawul al-Sulta,” *Al-Jumhuriya*, 28 August 2025, . [\[13\]](#_ftnref13) Haian Dukhan and Dawn Chatty, “The Druze-Bedouin Clashes in Syria Were Not a Sectarian Conflict,” *Al Jazeera*, 2 September 2025, .