How HTS will have to compromise on its orthodoxy for a stable regime – Firstpost

After Bashar al-Assad’s dramatic fall in December 2024, Syria is undergoing a political transition mainly led by the currently dominant militant-political group Hayat Tahrir al Sham. Most of the rebel militant groups that fought against the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad during the period of civil war have now joined the HTS-led government. However, there are a handful of rebel factions that haven’t so far joined the government or reconciled with the HTS, the most prominent group being the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that mostly dominate in the northeast of the country.

Although the chaos generated by the fall of Assad’s regime seems to be settling, the political future is still uncertain and unpredictable. The new HTS-led government is preoccupied with restoring Syria’s diplomatic relations, including with its Arab neighbours, post-civil war reconstruction, and economic recovery. Another priority, though a lower-order one, for the government seems to be the intra-sectarian reconciliation or national consensus in support of Syria’s political future. However, there is no clarity or roadmap outlined to that end as yet.

Interestingly, the interim president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has recently said that Syrians will have to wait for at least three years for a new post-Assad constitution and four years before elections could be conducted. This has generated a lot of confusion about HTS motives and a clear indication that the Islamist group is not ready to relinquish power in favour of a more inclusive or national consensus government anytime soon.

Being subjected to some attacks and violence, though isolated, ever since the fall of Assad, the country’s religious and ethnic minority groups, who make up almost one-third of Syria’s population, are living in a state of fear. Although the HTS has spread reassuring messages about the protection of minorities, many people, including the community leaders of the minority groups, have expressed apprehensions regarding the protection of their civil rights and religious freedoms in a future legal-constitutional framework.

However, contrary to popular perception, the constitutional history of Syria shows that the religious conservatives, or the Sunni majority, didn’t always have their way. In fact, the country’s minorities, which have always formed a significant section of the population, have played a vital role in the constitutional and political processes of the country, thereby negotiating or securing their civil rights, political representation, and religious freedoms.

The Greater Syria Draft Constitution of 1920, for instance, guaranteed freedom of belief and worship and the principle of equality irrespective of religion, which was advocated by the soon-to-be king Amir Faysal himself. Interestingly, the draft constitution didn’t include an establishment clause, which led some historians to describe it as “the most secular” constitution in the Middle East.

Moreover, the constitution stipulated proportional representation of religious minorities, who constituted ¼ of Syria’s population, in national and local legislative assemblies. All this was possible because of the vibrant civil society and probably the numerical strength of the minorities, which made it hard for the majority, including religious conservatives, to ignore their concerns or apprehensions.

The absence of an explicit establishment clause resulted from a compromise between some ulama and Muslim conservatives and religious minorities and moderate Muslims. However, the conservatives succeeded in obtaining the stipulation that Islam is “the religion of the king”. This maintained the Muslim character or the state custodianship of Islam in Syria.

Interestingly, this compromise formula continued in independent Syria. Article 3 of the 1950 constitution of Syria stated that “the religion of the President of the Republic is Islam”. This was again a result of a hard-fought political battle between conservatives who were in favour of inscribing Islam as the religion of the state in the constitution and Muslim and Syrian Christians who argued in the constituent assembly in favour of “separation of religion and state”. And Article 37 of the constitution mandated the representation of religious minorities.

Again, the 1973 constitution of the Syrian Arab Republic under the modernist Ba’ath regime continued with the old compromise formula while guaranteeing the religious minorities of the country civil rights and religious freedoms.

Thus, throughout the modern constitutional history of Syria, the state continued to be conceived as the “custodian of Islam”, but Islam was never made the religion of the state, and the country’s religious minorities continued to enjoy religious freedoms and political representation inscribed in the constitution. This was so even when the demographic weight of the religious minorities significantly declined as a result of the division of Greater Syria (Bilad al-Sham) in 1926 when it was divided into the French mandates of Syria and Lebanon and the British mandate of Palestine.

This complex and vibrant constitutional history of Syria gives us hints that the state in Syria will continue to be the custodian of Islam in the foreseeable future.It also gives us strong reasons to believe that the Islamist HTS will find it nearly impossible to stifle dissent and ignore the aspirations and concerns of the minority groups, especially the religious minorities.

While HTS is in a dominant position currently, it doesn’t enjoy total control or hegemony of power.The group faces significant ideological challenges from the religious minorities and moderate sections of the society and a serious political challenge from the Kurdish forces, who almost control one third of Syria. While it’s reasonable to believe that the conservative HTS will play a major role in drafting a future post-Assad constitution, it will be forced to compromise, give up some of its religious orthodoxy, and adopt pragmatism.

Liyaqat Nazir is a doctoral fellow at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.