Syrian security forces, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in an effort to wipe out loyalists to deposed President Bashar al-Assad, in around 30 ‘massacres’ on Friday and Saturday killed over a thousand civilians, including Christians and those belonging to the Alawite religious minority—the Alawites, the sect to which Assad belongs, is an offshoot from Shi’ite Islam. By far, this is the worst case of violence in Syria since rebels deposed Assad in December.

The patriarchs of Syria’s three main Christian churches, the Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, and Melkite Greek Catholic Churches, issued a joint statement on Saturday condemning the violence and ‘massacres targeting innocent civilians’. They called for ‘an immediate end to these horrific acts, which stand in stark opposition to all human and moral values.’ 

Christians are believed to have constituted about 30 per cent of the Syrian population as recently as the 1920s. Before the Syrian civil war, they made up about 10 per cent of Syria’s 22 million people, a figure now diminished to about 2.5 per cent, falling from 1.5 million in 2012 to about 300,000 in 2022. Most Christians left for Lebanon, Europe and North America, escaping the war and Syria’s terrible economic straits. Most Syrian Christians are Greek, or Syriac Orthodox, but Syria is also home to a small number of Latin-rite Catholics.

During the span of the 53-year rule of the Assad regime—Hafez (father) and Bashar (son)—Syrians lived under a political whim, which included undergoing purported war crimes and crimes against humanity. For Christians, at least for those in regions under the former Assad regime, there was a level of safety. They were not subject to practices like the jizya—taxation historically levied on non-Muslim subjects of a state governed by Islamic law—and sex slavery. They were, nevertheless, targeted by Islamic fundamentalists, as seen in disturbing social media videos showing rebels abducting women and girls and desecrating symbols of the Christian faith.

‘The people of Syria, regardless of their religious or ethnic background, have faced unimaginable hardships’

The Christians’ situation under the Supreme Commander and former al-Qaeda jihadist Ahmad al-Sharaa has only gotten more calamitous. So much so that last month Bishop Mariano Crociata of the Diocese of Latina-Terracina-Sezze-Priverno, who also serves as the President of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), called upon the European Union and the international community to take decisive measures to protect the vulnerable and facilitate long-term peace-building in Syria.

Manifesting deep concern over the ongoing suffering of the Syrian people, particularly the plight of Christian communities, Crociata said: ‘The people of Syria, regardless of their religious or ethnic background, have faced unimaginable hardships, including displacement, poverty and the destruction of their homes, livelihoods, and communities.’ 

‘In particular’, Crociata added: ‘I wish to draw attention to the plight of Christian communities in Syria, which have been an integral and essential part of the history and culture of the region for centuries and are now struggling to maintain their historical continuity in their homeland. The erosion of Christian communities would be a tragic loss not only for Syria but also for the stability of the region and the world.’

Syria’s New Caliph

When al-Sharaa, formerly known by his jihadist name Abu Mohammad al-Julani, overthrew President Assad and became the country’s de facto leader, he was hailed by some as a moderate opting to wear a jacket and tie instead of his fatigues and turban. This is the same argument I heard as a child when Ayatollah Khomeini, with Western help, overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979. The only difference is that the latter, as a religious cleric, did not shun his religious garb.

In January al-Sharaa introduced changes to the school curriculum, such as changing the phrases ‘path of goodness’ to ‘Islamic path’ and ‘those who are damned and have gone astray’ to ‘Jews and Christians’. 

In addition, there were several changes to references to the Ottoman Empire, such as replacing the phrase ‘Ottoman Occupation’ with ‘Ottoman Administration’, and references to the 1916 mass execution of Arab nationalists under the Ottomans were removed. 

The curriculum revisions also demonstrate a significant regression in female representation, eliminating references to prominent women throughout history, like Nazik al-Abid (1887–1959), dubbed the ‘Arab Joan of Arc’ for her role as a Syrian women’s rights activist, nationalist, and critic of Ottoman and French colonialism in Syria; Queen Zenobia (240–275 AD), one of the greatest and most powerful rulers of Antiquity; and Khawla bint al-Azwar, a seventh-century Muslim warrior.

‘The curriculum revisions demonstrate a significant regression in female representation, eliminating references to prominent women’

Sharaa was associated with al-Qaeda in Iraq as part of the resistance against U.S. invasion in 2003. He was detained for five years in American and Iraqi prisons. He then established Jabhat al-Nusra as a branch of al-Qaeda in Syria before rebranding it to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Organization for the Liberation of the Levant or HTS) to gain local support and international legitimacy. This is very similar to how the prophet of Islam rose to power.

Learning from History

After Muhammad’s unsuccessful attempt to become a so-called preacher in Mecca, he fled to Medina in 622, when he became a military leader. His purpose was not to rid himself ‘of foreign occupation but to strive for a new universal order in which the whole of humanity would be able to embrace Islam or live under its domination.’^[1] In an attempt to gain the support of the Jewish families in Medina, who hosted him and his handful of followers, Muhammad (and his disciples) oriented prayers toward Jerusalem and observed a fast for the Judaic feast of Yom Kippur. In this cunning move, he was able to draw financial sustenance from the Jews. Even though he failed to be recognized as a prophet by them, Muhammad was financially able to recruit other men whom he compelled to use violence to further his desires. He contemporaneously reoriented his prayer toward Mecca and consequently became destined to conquer the pagan Arabs there.

As soon as Muhammad no longer had to rely on the support of the Jews (or Christians), he swindled them and commanded his fellow Muslims to engage them in battle until they accepted Islamic hegemony under the jizya. This coerced them to yield to discriminative norms that would remind them on a regular basis of their subordinate position. The prophet of Islam requested his followers to invite other nonbelievers to accept Islam, as he did with their rulers. If they refused to submit, they were to be offered an ‘opportunity to pay tribute as vassals of the Islamic state, and if they refused that also, [then they went] to war’ with them:

‘Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action…If they refuse to migrate, tell them that they will have the status of Bedouin Muslims and will be subjected to the Commands of Allah like other Muslims, but they will not get any share from the spoils of war or Fai’ except when they actually fight with the Muslims (against the disbelievers). If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.’—Sahih Muslim, Book 19, hadith 4294

‘Redefining the word “martyr” from someone who died for a homeland to someone who sacrifices themself “for the sake of Allah”’

What is perhaps more disturbing, if not indicative of Syria’s new caliph, is the redefinition of the word ‘martyr’ from someone who died for a homeland to someone who sacrifices themself ‘for the sake of Allah’. In like manner, the phrase ‘defending the nation’ to ‘defending Allah’, i.e. the new Islamist body politic.

It is astonishing how so many politicians from both sides of the spectrum and most media outlets refuse to admit that the problem here is not a subset of Islamic thought but the fundamentals of Islam itself. To think that a former al-Qaeda fighter can change the course of Syria for the better, specifically for Christians, is fanciful. Just as ‘an Ethiopian [cannot] change his skin or a leopard its spots…Neither can [Islamists] do good who are accustomed to doing evil’. (Jeremiah 13, 23)

Let us not forget our Christian brethren in prayer, and let us make our voices for them heard.

^[1] Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism: A History, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007, 6.

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