EASTPOLICY,VOL.VIII, No.
4, DECLIMBER
MIDIIL~: 2001
SYRIA:
ISLAM,
ARABNATIONALISM
AND THE
MILITARY
Ghada Hashem Talhami
DK Talhami is D.K. Pearsons professor of politics at Lake Forest College.
She is the author of Syria and the Palestinians: The Clash of Nationalisms
(see review on page 164).
ne of the Syrian Islamic
movement’s most obvious
characteristics is its limited
impact on a populace obsessed
with defining its national destiny. More
than any other Arab country, Syria has
always debated its fiiture, its ideal political
system and its national identity with great
earnestness. Ever since the emergence of
modern Syria with its current Westem-
imposed boundaries, Syrians have searched
for a more palatable alternative national
existence. This search has taken the form
of a philosophical quest as well as a
practical one. Moreover, modem Syria’s
truncated geography, which suffered the
loss of the Lebanese mountains, the Turkish
territories and Southern Syria (Palestine
and Jordan) resulted in a determined effort
to overcomc the limitations ofthe Sykes-
Picot Agreement. This quest continued
even after independence, when the Sykes-
Picot and San Remo boundaries hardened
into the map of the modem Syrian state.
Syrians found themselves torn between a
commitment to republicanism and the lure
of unification with contiguous monarchic
regimes such as the Hashemites of Jordan
and Iraq. The quest for an alternative
national map, hence, was never free of its
own risks and always generated intense
political and ideological rivalries.
From the beginning, the Islamist role in
this quest was a limited and isolated effort.
The general acceptance of the basic
premise of the Islamist position was always
there, but in practical terms the movement
often lacked relevance, as well as strategic
allies. Additionally, when compared to
other rival ideologies such as those of the
Baath party or the Arab nationalist move-
ment, political Islam paled in the richness
of its thought and its originality. A deriva-
tive of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt,
Syrian Islamist thinking was often bur-
dened with the legacy of that movement,
particularly in its confrontation with
Nasserism. Rather than draw some
benefits from its association with the Arab
world’s most illustrious and oldest Islamist
movement, Syrian Islamic organizations
were tainted with the failure of their
ideological forebears. Thus Syrian political
Islam faced more challenges and organiza-
tional obstacles than similar movements in
predominantly Muslim countries.
A relative latecomer to the pluralist
political scene in Syria, the Islamist move-
 NATIONALISM
TALtlAMI: ISLAM, ARAB
ment was not actively engaged against the
French colonialists. Other ideological
manisfestations preceded them on the
Syrian scene, such as the People’s party
and the Nationalist party. Far from being
mass political parties, these two coalesced
around interest groups within the higher
strata of society. But the two groups
spearheaded the Syrians’ rejection of the
French- and British-imposed settlement of
1918. The Nationalist party, which was
later led by Shukri al-Quwatli, advocated
Arab unity through the efforts of the Arab
League of States and was unwilling to
sacrifice its republican system of govern-
ment. The People’s party, on the other
hand, later led by Rushdi al-Kikhia, was
willing to accept unions even with
monarchic regimes.’
There were also mass parties capable
of presenting the public with a coherent
political program. The Syrian Social
National party (SSNP) of Anton Saadah,
for instance, tirst emerged in 1935, posing
as a secular nationalist movement. The
Baath party, both before and after its
merger with Akram Hourani’s Arab
Socialist party, assumed the mantle of the
early pan-Arabists while adding the
dimension ofArab socialism to its ideology.
Following its merger with Hourani’s party
in 1953, the latter’s emphasis on the plight
of the Syrian peasantry and the Baath
commitment to socialism presented a
powerful ideology.’
Emerging in the 194Os, the Baath, as
well as the SSNP, emphasized the transi-
tory nature of the Syrian state and the
desirability of achieving larger territorial
units. The Muslim Brotherhood, which
also emerged in the 1940s, challenged the
current territorial definition of Syrian
nationalism. Thus the entire ideological
Ill
AN11 T t l t MILITARY
IN SYRIA
spectrum from independence onwards was
dominated by the debate over the principles
of nationhood and nationalism. Competing
ideas of the Baath, the SSNP and the
Brotherhood, nevertheless, were distin-
guished by the clarity oftheir discourse and
the symmetry oftheir philosophies.
Whereas the SSNP championed the vision
of regional nationalism, basing its logic on
geography as the great definer of nation-
hood, the Baath anchored its ideology in
the principles of language and history. The
Muslim Brotherhood, however, raised the
issue of religion as the most logical and
enduring bond among people, proclaiming
the ideal of the unity ofthe Muslim world
as the desired shape of the future.’
In addition, Syrian pluralism during the
post-independence period, as well as
various superimposed one-party solutions,
gave rise to a multiple array ofpolitical
parties. There was, for instance, the
Syrian Communist party, which emerged
both in Syria and Lebanon in 1925 and
drew its support primarily, but not exclu-
sively, from non-Muslim minorities and
intellectuals. Under the leadership of
Kahled Bikdash since 1932, the Communist
party was able to activate large Muslim
sectors, such as the Syrian Kurds, and to
draw closer to the Arab nationalist forces.
Bikdash also enjoyed a wide popular base
in the Damascus region, particularly
following the 1954 parliamentary elections.
However, Bikdash never enjoyed serious
support outside the Syrian capital. Neither
did the ideological basis of the party,
namely internationalism, ever touch the
psyche of the majority of Syrians. Under
the Shishakli regime, a single official party
known as Harakat al-Tahrir al-Arabi (The
Arab Liberation Movement) attempted to
fill the void created by Shishakli’s disband-
MimLt; EASTPOLICY,
VOL.VIII, No. 4, DECEMBIK
2001
ing ofall political parties in 1952 but did not
last beyond his termination.‘
Nasser’s cancellation of all Syrian
political parties in the Syrian region ofthe
United Arab Republic also resulted in the
creation in 1958 ofAl-lttihad al-Qawmi
(The National Union).5 Syria’s commit-
ment to political pluralism was thus weak-
ened in the early 1960s. The Hafiz Asad
regime, which began to dominate Syria in
1963, proved reluctant to superimpose
another single-party system. The Baath
party, by then purged and redirected, was
assured a dominant position in both the
Peoples’ Council (Majlis al-Shaab), and in
the National Progressive Front, which
included five other parties but not the
Brotherhood.”
Perhaps what the lslamist movement
symbolized for the Syrian people was not a
political program but the civilizational
heritage of Islam. It appears that very few
people took the Brotherhood’s emphasis on
the universal political bond of Islam and the
inevitability of the universal Islamic state
seriously. What is clear, however, is that
just as the Arab bourgeoisie constructed a
political program with which to resist and
challenge the French, and Marxist groups
came forward with a social program in the
1940s to challenge the unequal distribution
of wealth, Islamic organizations proposed a
civilizational program demanding that
values be an important component of the
national identity.’ Thus, the Islamist
movement did not contribute greatly to the
Syrian discourse on the definition of
nationhood and the nation. With its heavy
emphasis on Muslim history and heritage,
the lslamist movement appeared
marginalized and out of touch with the
political realities of the I940s, 1950s and
the 1960s. Given this context, the question
112
then becomes: How and why did the
Muslim Brotherhood rise to challenge one
of Syria’s most resilient authoritarian
regimes during the 1970s and 1980s?
BACKGROUND
An examination of the historical
background ofthe Islamic movement in
Syria will shed some light on the signifi-
cance of Syria’s Islamic credentials, as well
as on the Egyptian lslamist ties that nur-
tured the current movement. Throughout
history, the Syrian lands have contributed
their share of Islamic thinkers and religious
legal scholars (ulama). By virtue of its
background as the center of the first Arab
empire, the Umayyid, and its numerous
ancient mosques and religious schools,
beginning with the Umayyid Mosque, Syria
was as much the heart of the Muslim world
as was Egypt. Famous religious families
transmitted Islamic scholarship from one
generation to the next, particularly in
Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and Hama.
During the present era, the College of
Islamic Law within the University of
Damascus has become the training ground
of some of Syria’s and the Arab world’s
distinguished Muslim legal, or Sharia,
scholars.X Although lacking the ancient
roots and global fame of al-Azhar Univer-
sity of Cairo, Kulliyat al-Sharia of Dam-
ascus has enjoyed the general indepen-
dence and immunity extended to the
University of Damascus for much of its
recent history. This institution was able to
determine its own curriculum and keep the
government at bay. Thus, even after the
neo-Baath regime attempted to infuse a
strong pan-Arabist direction in the
university’s curricula, the Sharia College
was able to maintain its own emphasis on
the separation of the Sharia and civil law.’

TALIiAMI: ISLAM, ARAB
Some of the distinguished - and politicized
- professors of this college, such as the
early leader of the Brotherhood, Dr.
Mustafa al-Sibai, have been able to enrich
the program of study by the addition of
courses on various Islamic sects to the
well-established curriculum emphasizing the
four legal schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
Appointed as dean of the Law Faculty
at Damascus University in 1955, al-Sibai,
then in full bloom as a party leader and
member of parliament, proceeded to enrich
and redesign the curriculum. He is also
credited with initiating during this period the
massive project of the Encyclopedia of
Islamic Law (Mawsuat al-Fiqh al-lslami).
This tradition of blending scholarship and
political activism extended to other lslamist
leaders who were products of the Sharia
College, such as Sheikh Muhammad Abu-
al-Nasr al-Bayanuni and Said Hawwa."'
Thus, the presence of a distinguished
Sharia college in Syria fostered and
intensified modem Islamic studies in a
manner that was lacking in countries
without such institutions, such as Jordan,
Lebanon or even Palestine.
It should be evident, however, that
Islamic scholarship and moderate Islamic
activism preceded the establishment of
Damascus University and its various
colleges. The transformation of the Islamic
scholarly circles into a political movement
was not completed until the rise of the
Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt and the
development of similar organizations in
Syria. Syrian Islamists, naturally, underplay
this direct connection between the two
organizations. According to their view, the
earliest Islamic societies or organizations,
taking the name ofjumiyuh, were in direct
response to the rise of Protestant and
Jewish societies that targeted the Arab
1 I3
NATIONALISM
AND THE MILITARY
IN SYRIA
Christian population, particularly in Lebanon.
The last quarter of the nineteenth
century, according to this view, saw the
rise of Islamic societies that were out-
wardly dedicated to social-welfare activi-
ties. These were intended also to counter-
act the transmission of Western, and
therefore un-Islamic, values. Among the
earliest of these was the Ottoman-spon-
sored Jami yat al-Maqasid al-Khairiyah,
which emerged in 1878 in Beirut. Eventu-
ally, this organizational prototype spread to
other Arab countries. These societies
provided Islamic educational opportunities
for the poor, as well as welfare benefits. A
network of these organizations developed
in Syria decades before the emergence of
the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood."
Other Islamic centers of learning and
activity became politicized as the result of
the spreading fame of the Egyptian organi-
zation and the return of Syrian students
from studies at al-Azhar. The first of these
to exhibit lslamist political views was the
Aleppo Sharia College, known as Dar al-
Arqam, which trained Islamic activist
students in the 1920s and 1930s. Al-
Arqam is credited with giving rise to the
earliest of the Islamic brotherhoods in
Syria. Similar organizations soon devel-
oped in other major cities, with groups in
Damascus, Hama, Deir al-Zour and
Lattakiyah taking the name of the Muslim
Brotherhood, and in Homs known as al-
Rabitah. Muslim brotherhoods also
developed in some European countries and
wherever Syrian students pursued higher
studies. These organizations came to-
gether in 1937 and held their first annual
meeting at Homs under the name of
Tantheem Shabab Muhammad.
Another conference followed in 1938
at Damascus. It was during the latter
annual meeting that the decision to head-
quarter the organization at Aleppo was
made, largely to conceal activities from the
eyes of the government in Damascus.
During the fourth annual meeting at Aleppo,
Shabab Muhammad took the decision to
organize quasi-military groups known as Al-
Saraya and Al-Futtuwa. By 1944, the
annual meeting at Aleppo adopted resolu-
tions to create a Damascus-based execu-
tive committee representing the
organization’s various branches. The name
Shabab Muhammad was changed to the
Islamic Brotherhood party (hizb). A higher
institute of learning was established at
Aleppo, Al-Mahad al-Thanawi al-Arabi
(The Arab Secondary Institute), as well as
a publishing house at Damascus and a
paper under the title ofAl-Munar. A new
leadership emerged represented by
Muhammad al-Mubarak, Mustafa Sibai and
Dr. Marouf al-Dawalibi. Both al-Mubarak
and al-Dawalibi eventually became promi-
nent members of various coalition cabinets
and were typical of a generation of Broth-
erhood members who did not hesitate to
take part in mainstream Syrian political life.
Dawalibi often rose to the position of prime
minister and minister of defense, while al-
Mubarak was usually selected as minister
of agriculture. Sibai served several terms
as a member of parliament.’?
Some of the Brotherhood’s later
leadership, such as lssam al-Attar, who
inherited Sibai’s mantle in 1957 on the eve
of the creation of the United Arab Repub-
lic ( 1958-196 1 ), was entrusted during this
period with the editorship of Al-Mmur.
Thus, with most ofthe lslamist institutions
in place, it was no surprise that the visit of
Hasan al-Banna to Syria in 1946, and his
inspection tour of the Brotherhood’s main
military training camps at Qatana, resulted
1 I4
in the unification of all clubs and organiza-
tions. The year 1946 witnessed the
transformation of the movement into a
political party, and a major departure from
the Egyptian Brotherhood’s political
strategy developed.” While the Egyptian
Brothers under al-Banna’s leadership
rejected the notion of participating in a non-
Islamic liberal political system, the Syrian
Brothers were actively present in the
center of parliamentary life. This fact,
however, does not mean that they enjoyed
a position of dominance, but rather a
marginalized and somewhat ineffective
role. Yet, despite frequent Baathist
allegations ofthe Brotherhood’s lack of
influence over Syria’s intensely competitive
party life from the 1940s to the 1960s, it
was able to define several crucial issues
and fight significant battles.I4
Typically, most histories ofthis period
emphasize the rise of the Baath and the
triangular relationship between this party,
the old traditional political groups such as
the National and the People’s party, and
the army. Until 1956, when Adnan al-
Malki was assassinated, the SSNP was
also an important element in the political
spectrum. But a careful reading of all of
these histories reveals a significant thread
of Islamic activism represented by the
Brotherhood’s ideological approach to
politics, and a steady legitimization in the
eyes of the Syrian public. The Brother-
hood’s greatest difficulty, however, has
always been in defining itself. Its greatest
competition was not from the Communist
party or even the SSNP as might be
expected, but from the Baath, which
captured the imagination and the political
allegiance of Syria’s rising masses.
The Syrian Brotherhood found itself
operating not only in one of the most
 ISLAM. ARAB
TALHAMI: A N D .nit: MILITARY
NATIONALISM I N SYRIA

nationalist political environments in the ijtimai) which he popularized during the

Arab World, but also in a country where 1940s - and partly in response to the
secular Arab nationalism seemed to have politicization of the Syrian peasants and
won the day. Moreover, this secularism, workers, the Brotherhood adopted a strong
which was enunciated by the main ideo- socialist position.16 Beginning in 1949,
logical currents, such as the SSNP and the Sibai emphasized in his speeches and
Baath, did not come at the expense of publications, particularly in his book
Islam. Indeed, one of the main difficulties /shtiruki?/at a/-Islam (Islamic Socialism,
of standing up to the Baath was always the 1960), a system of Islamic socialism based
latter’s ability to reconcile Arab national- on almsgiving and collective and social
ism, Arab socialism and Arab Islam. Not responsibility. Inspired by the works of
unlike the Brother- mostly Egyptian
hood, the Baath - Islamic reformers
even its prominent One of the main difficulties of such as Jamal al-
Christianleader- standing up to the Baath was Din al-Afghani
ship - has always and Muhammad
emPhasized that always the latter’s ability to Abduh. and in
Islam was “the reconcile Arab nationalism, recent years by
eternal mission” of Arab socialism and Arab Islam. the writings of
all Arabs. In the Khaled
view of Michel Muhammad
Aflaq, Islam was not only a divine and Khaled, Sibai attempted to reconcile
religious system, but also an expression of traditional Islamic concepts with the
the genius of the Arab nation. Since the modern ideas of socialism and progress.
Arab nation is eternal, renewing itself Rejecting communism and its emphasis
across human history, then Arab national- on class conflict, Sibai’s reconciliation
ism is one of its latest manifestations in the effort equated the role of the Islamic
current historical stage. Thus, nationalism capitalist with that of the Islamic worker by
reaches its zenith only when it reunites focusing on the meaning of Islam’s demand
with historical Islam, since both are no for social solidarity. But here again the
more than the manifestation of the nation in Brotherhood’s refusal to anathematize
two distinct times.I5 Obviously, the socialism as a godless ideology had to
Brotherhood’s adherence to traditional confront the concept of state socialism
Islam limited its intellectual appeal, given adopted by its strong Nasserite enemy and
the Baath’s modern elaboration on the its Baathist rival. Baathism also began to
interconnection between religion and advocate clear socialist ideas around 1949,
nationalism. when the party started to seek parliamen-
The Syrian Brotherhood, however, did tary representation. The Baath postulated
depart from the ideas of Orthodox Islam in the concept of a socialist state, based on a
its elaboration on Islamic socialism. Partly total redistribution ofwealth, as the ulti-
influenced by the ideas of the Egyptian mate vehicle for the destruction of the
Sayyid Qutb - especially his concept of Arab social system everywhere.”
Islamic social solidarity (al-tukqful ul-

1 I5
MIDDLE VOL.VIII, No. 4, DECEMBER
EASTPOLICY, 2001
1950-70
The Brotherhood was not only margin-
alized as a result of Baathist ideological
appeal, however. The Brotherhood’s own
ideology at times seemed ahistorical and
politically irrelevant as a result ofbeing
incapable ofresponding to national dilem-
mas. One of the dominant crises of Syria’s
post-independence period was the defeat
of Arab Palestine and the rise of a threat-
ening and alien state to the south. The
Syrians immediately became fixated on the
issue of Israel, not only because of the
failure of the Arab nations to preserve
Palestine from what was perceived as
another neo-colonial and imperial aggres-
sion, but also because of a potential
strategic stand-off with Israel. Both on
ideological and pragmatic policy grounds,
Israel posed a severe challenge to the
Syrian political system. The most logical
and practical response to this development
became quickly defined as an immediate
call to unification with neighboring Arab
states. The Palestine question lent greater
credence to the romanticized Baathist call
for Arab unity. The efforts of Ahmad
Shuqairi, veteran Palestinian statesman, to
focus Syrian foreign policy on Palestine
and its grievances continued until Husni al-
Zaim’s coup in 1949. Concern for Pales-
tine revived again during the dictatorship of
Adib al-Shishkali. Disputes over the
damming of Lake Houleh ( 1951-52) and
the Eric Johnston Plan (1953) highlighted
the Israeli-Syrian Jordan River conflict and
helped maintain Syria’s concern over its
strategic vulnerability to the south.Ix By
contrast, the Brotherhood’s call for an
Islamic state and Islamic unity provided no
answers to Syria’s strategic dilemmas.
The Syrian Brotherhood also bore the
full brunt of the Nasserite vilification
1 I6
campaign against the Egyptian Brother-
hood during the 1950s. Not only were the
Syrian Brotherhood’s ideas deemed
unfashionable, Nasser’s 1954 confrontation
with their Egyptian counterparts and his
rising popularity with the Arab masses
darkened the Brotherhood’s image in Syria.
Nasser’s relentless propaganda machine,
which reached the entire Arab world,
emphasized the Brotherhood’s evil politics
and the bankruptcy of its ideas. The
Nasserites never acknowledged the
Brotherhood’s anti-British and anti-Zionist
campaigns in Palestine nor its social-
welfare programs on behalf of Egypt’s
poor.’” Although the Syrians emerged as
the only surviving Arab representatives of
the lslamist movement, the continued rise
of Nasser’s popularity, particularly after
the Suez War, contributed to their increas-
ing unpopularity. The Suez War also
invalidated the logic of Islamic unity.”’
Neither were the Syrian Islamists aided
by the intensifying struggle between the
SSNP and the Baath following the execution
of Saadah in Lebanon in 1949. Accused of
handing over Saadah to the Lebanese
authorities, Zaim’s government suffered a
great loss of legitimacy, which led to further
divisions within the ranks of the armed
forces.’’ When the SSNP sought to
accelerate its rise within the military by
assassinating Deputy Chief of Stat’f Adnan
Malki in April 1955, the center of its activi-
ties shifted to Lebanon. More important,
leadership within the armed forces began to
shift to the Baathists.?‘ Indeed, this internal
struggle within the various ideological
factions of the armed forces was being
resolved in favor of the Baath beginning in
the mid 1950s. The Brotherhood was
uninvolved and was viewed as being
seriously opposed to the encroachment of
 TALHAMI:
ISLAM, ARAB
NATIONALISM
the military on civilian political life. The
Brotherhood’s reaction to the rising influ-
ence of military leaders explains its
marginalization in Syrian politics as well as
its evolving role as a member of several
anti-military parliamentary coalitions.
To understand Syria’s unstoppable slide
towards military rule and the eventual
military capture ofmost institutions in the
country by Baathist officers, one needs to
examine the unusual career of Akram
Hourani. The rise of the military to power
was one of the Brotherhood’s greatest
defeats. Hourani, on the other hand, was
driven by his own life experiences to
search for a suitable philosophy of national
salvation and the means by which to
provide Syria’s masses with social and
economic equality. Joining the SSNP in
1936, he was the mainstay of this party in
his hometown of Hama until the 1950s.
He also represented the SSNP in parlia-
ment while still impressed with its advo-
cacy of Greater Syrian unification. But, at
the same time, he began to champion the
rights of the peasants in Hama, an area
noted for its feudal estates, and eventually
organized Hizb al-Shabab (the Youth
party).’3
By 1950, this party took the name Arab
Socialist party and began to expand into
Damascus, where it also competed with
the Brotherhood for the allegiance of
student groups. The party merged with the
Baath of Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar in
1953, becoming the Arab Baath Socialist
party.24 While still Hama-based, the party
adopted a clear socialist plank, calling for
the redistribution of large estates to the
poor, for a neutral foreign policy, and for
the suppression of religious sectarianism.
The Arab Socialist party thus sounded very
much like the Arab Baath except that
117
AND THE MILITARY
IN SYRIA
Hourani was credited with enunciating a
clear socialist line before the Baath did.25
Hourani’s former party, however, differed
from the Baath in its deemphasis of the
idea of Arab unity.
Hourani, nevertheless, was just as
obsessed with Arab nationalism as were
Aflaq and Bitar. Hourani was also trauma-
tized by the twentieth-century Arab
confrontation with Israel and the Western
Powers and the failure of Arab arms.
While the Muslim Brotherhood saw the
decline of the Arabs as the result of the
absence of Islamic moral values and the
onslaught of Westernization and modern-
ism, Hourani approached this as a political
and social dilemma. When Hourani began
to strengthen his ties to the Syrian military
establishment and to politicize their ranks,
the pattern of Syria’s historical develop-
ment began to change. And of all of his
varied and socially committed legacies, he
will always be remembered for facilitating
the militarization of Syria’s parliamentary
and republicanist system of government.
Hourani’s attraction to the military was
at first motivated by nationalist consider-
ations and only later by social necessity.
As a young man, he used to incite mem-
bers of the Army of the Orient, which the
French created in Syria and Lebanon, to
rebel against the colonial administration or
desert altogether. Some of these enlisted
officers joined Hourani in lraq in 1941 to
battle British troops and assist the cause of
Rashid Ali al-Gaylani. Hourani also joined
Syrian officers fighting on the Palestine
front while an elected member of parlia-
ment. He volunteered for this duty along-
side some prominent military officers like
Adib Shishakli. His access to the military,
despite his lack of any military credentials,
had been made possible by the presence of
MIDDLE VOL.VIlI, No. 4, DECEMBER
EASTPOLICY, 2001

the military academy in nearby Homs. officers to his passionate concern for
Thus, although he himself was studying national revival and social justice was due
law, his contacts were with the officers to his lack of hesitation when it came to
and cadets of this French-founded military encouraging their entry into political life.
academy training young men for service Hourani went to the extent of supporting
with the Army of the Orient.?‘ several military takeovers of government
Hourani’s influence was largely beginning with the coup of Husni al-Zaim
exercised over the Hama officers, specifi- in March of 1949, that of Sami Hinnawi in
cally the fourth batch, who graduated August of 1949, and that of Adib al-
between 1946 and 1952, and particularly Shishkali in December of 1949. In all of
the class of 1948. This group was appar- these, Hourani, inspired by the progressive
ently committed to Hourani’s leadership and reformist model of Ataturk, worked
and, due to the 1948 Palestine war, was with each and every military leader by
extraordinarily writing their press
politicized. Most of communiques and
this class of offic- The failure of civilian promoting their
ers held the civilian 0
government to Save the honor progressive policies,
politicians respon- such as al-Zaim’s
sible for their
of the military in the Palestine extension ofthe
defeat. The failure war was blamed on prevalent franchise to
of civilian govern- feudal conditions such as women. He was
ment to save the existed in the Hama region. rewarded with the
honor of the post of minister of
military in the agriculture by the
Palestine war was blamed on prevalent Hinnawi government. Always denying his
feudal conditions such as existed in the role in backing these military takeovers
Hama region. Thus, Hourani’s call for the with strategies and policies designed to
need to launch social and economic appeal to the public, the so-called “midwife
changes and to transform the army into the of all coups” was clearly supportive of the
instrument of progress and reform reso- military in order to weaken his own tradi-
nated with the officers and enhanced tional political enemies. When Shishkali
Hourani’s popularity. Loyalty to Hourani eliminated all political parties, Hourani
even rivaled the officers’ allegiance to the turned against him, just as he turned
Baath and the SSNP, both of which had against Nasser’s successful effort to
also infiltrated the military ranks. Hourani muzzle the political parties of the UAR’s
gained the officers’ trust because he Syrian region.2x
constantly championed their cause in The army’s steady encroachment on
parliament against the severe criticism of civilian politics was of such concern to
the politicians.?’ successive Syrian regimes that special
Thus, the military in Syria emerged measures had to be taken in order to
after independence fully politicized and rent prevent future coup attempts. Indeed,
by competing ideologies. Hourani’s during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the
success in winning a large number of military were so torn by ideological divi-

I18
 ISLAM,ARABNATIONALISM
TALHAMI:
sions that they were viewed as a natural
segment of the politically active classes.
But so were the students, also in the
forefront of the political struggles of that
period. When the neo-Baath took over the
reins of government under Asad beginning
in 1970, he banned all political activities
among students and the military except for
the Baath party. Other political parties
were not allowed to organize or recruit
members from these two groups. Recog-
nition of their volatility has always haunted
the Syrian body politic.29
When examined against this back-
ground, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood will
be seen as an important player in the
central political struggles of the post-
independence period. It should also be
apparent that Syrian politics cannot be
understood without grasping the role of the
Brotherhood. Analysis of the militarization
of politics, therefore, becomes just as
important as various Arab unification
schemes, Nasserite Arab nationalism and
major social legislation involving property
rights. Attempts to write new conetitutions
also stirred the Brotherhood to action while
at the same time revealing its limitations
and inability to recruit followers. The
Brotherhood suffered repeated failures to
respond to various Arab foreign-policy
issues affecting Syria.
One of the unusual features of the
Syrian Islamist movement, as indicated
earlier, was its participation in parliamen-
tary politics long before resorting to
revolutionary violence during the 1970s and
early 1980s. Beginning in 1947, the
Brotherhood ran candidates for parliament
from Damascus and was able to enjoy
relative freedom of expression and organi-
zation until the rise of the Shishakli regime.
By 1949, Sibai had won a seat in a new
119
AND THE MILITARY
IN SYRIA
elected body to draft a constitution and
had become part of an Islamic Socialist
bloc dedicated to the adoption of a consti-
tution with an Islamic ~rientation.~” This
bloc consisted of four deputies, but the
winners of that year were the independents
led by Sami Kabbarah. The total size of
the newly created Constituent Assembly
was 1 16. The brainchild of the new army
dictator Sami Hinnawi, this assembly was
elected in November 1949 with the full
backing of the People’s party in order to
pave the way for a Syrian-Iraqi union. The
Constituent Assembly went as far as the
drafting of a new presidential oath, which
deleted the statement “I pledge to respect
the republican system of government.”
Elements within the army, particularly
the Baathists and Hourani’s supporters,
were fiercely against the proposed
Hashemite-Syrian union. This led to
another coup attempt by an old military
associate of Hourani, Adib Shishakli. The
Syrian army feared such a union because
of the possibility of absorption by its larger
Iraqi counterpart, while the old political
classes feared a permanent assault on the
legal constitution, which was nullified by
Zaim’s COUP.^'
Fear of opposition by the Baathist and
pro-Hourani officers was so great that
politicians, such as the People’s party
stalwarts, were pushing Hinnai to make
some arrests in order to facilitate the
creation of the new Constituent Assembly.
This polarization of the political scene in
which the Muslim Socialist bloc was on the
side of the Hashemite union met with
failure when Shishakli took power. But a
new alliance emerged between the
People’s party and the Muslim Brother-
hood, which was anti-army. Both of these
parties saw in the Iraqi-Syrian union a way
MIDDLE
EASTPoLicy, VOL.VIII, No. 4,DECEMBER
2001

out of the Pretorian dilemma. The over the identity of the state in the new
People’s party remained dependent on the constitution, Sibai led the fight over declar-
Brotherhood’s support even after ing Islam the sole religion of the state. But
Shishakli’s coup and worked to undermine he lost in favor of those who insisted only
a proposed new government to be led by on delineating Islam as the religion of the
Hourani, for fear of losing the president of the republic. This statement
Brotherhood’s support. The latter made was then buttressed by declaring Islamic
known its animosity to Hourani’s pro-army jurisprudence to be the main source of
candidate and to increasing military influ- legislation and the state to be the sustainer
ence over civilian politics and scuttled any of all divine faiths. The debate over
plans to support Hourani. Shishakli, the secularizing the state was also joined by
new strongman, thus used Hourani during some of Syria’s Christian religious leader-
the early phase of the coup in order to ship. The Greek Orthodox Bishop of
keep the old parties, the Hama, Ignatius Harika,
People’s and National protested in the pages
parties, in check. The PreoccuDation with the of the national press
1
Brotherhood, though not that the new constitu-
powerful on its own,
dress code of female tion threatened to
was important as a students was deemed relegate Christians to
swing party.’? nefarious by an the status of a perma-
The Muslim Broth- assembly fiiated on the nent minority. Other
erhood paid the price bishops representing
for its antipathy to army issue of land reform. Syria’s Christian
rule when it became the mosaic also protested,
first casualty of Shishakli’s abandonment of directly to the government, plans to declare
his brief experiment with democracy. The Syria a Muslim state.
new dictator closed the offices of the The Muslims, for their part, interjected
conservative National and People’s parties, Islamic values in the national debate when
as well as those of the Cooperative Social- Sibai called from the floor of parliament for
ist party and the Organization of the banning youths from frequenting movie
Muslim Brotherhood, but not before houses. This demand bought ridicule to the
witnessing a great battle over the proposed Islamics, who had recently inveighed
new constitution.” Two issues divided the against female participation in scouting
Syrian public: a proposed clause limiting parades and the attendance of unveiled
land ownership and paving the way for a women at coeducational institutes of higher
redistribution of wealth, and another learning. Preoccupation with the dress
declaring the republic to be an Islamic code of female students was, therefore,
country. deemed nefarious by an assembly fixated
In the debate over land ownership, on the issue of land reform.35
elected members sided with the conserva- The greatest confrontation between
tive bloc, which barely managed to beat the Islamic constituency and Shishakli took
back Hourani’s progressive group and its place over the issue of civilian control of
demands for In the other debate the Ministry of Defense. More important,

120
 TALHAMI:
ISLAM, ARAB
NATIONALISM AND THE MILITARY
the man chosen by President Hashem al-
Attasi to head the government after
several short-lived cabinets led by the
People’s party and the independent Khaled
al-Azm was Sheikh Dr. Maarouf al-
Dawalibi. The sheikh was considered part
of the left wing of the People’s party but of
a decidedly Islamic orientation. Dawalibi
then assigned to himself the portfolio of the
Ministry of Defense without prior consulta-
tion with Shishakli. The implication ofthis
development, which epitomized the
People’s party’s interest in banishing
military influence from the cabinet, was
that, theoretically at least, Dawalibi could
ask the president and the parliament to
remove Shishakli from the position of chief
of staff.36
This short-lived experiment in civilian-
military rule, which extended from
Shishakli’s takeover of power after the end
of Hinnawi’s military regime in December
1949 to December 1951 , ended when the
military dictator instigated a coup against
his regime. Shishakli removed from office
and imprisoned members of the civilian
government, including the president.
Another military figure, Fawzi Silo, became
head of state and Shishakli head of the
cabinet. The military blow appeared at
first to be directed at the traditional parties
that had dominated Syrian politics until that
time. But soon the Baath and the Arab
Socialist party were also dissolved.
Shishakli then created his own political
organization, the Arab Liberation Move-
ment, which reduced Syria to a one-party
state for the first time ever. He also
mobilized large segments of students,
youths and minor government officials to
join his party, as well as sizeable numbers
from the SSNP. Only the Baath and the
Arab Socialist party remained active in the
121
IN SYRIA
field as Shishakli’s illegal opposition,
spearheading a general rejection of the
principle of military dictatorship. These
conditions lasted until another coup re-
moved Shishakli in February 1954.j’
The efforts of the Brotherhood and the
People’s party to stop the army’s en-
croachment on civilian politics thus failed,
largely because neither group had any
substantial links to the military. When
elections for a new parliament took place
after Shishakli’s removal, the Brotherhood
did not participate at all. Clearly, the
Brotherhood failed to impress the Syrian
voters with its resistance to the military
dictatorship. Indeed, in the elections of
September 1954, the People’s party, which
had led the struggle against the army, lost
badly because of its attempt to bring Syria
into the Iraqi axis. Enjoying control over
43 seats (out of a total of 119) in the 1949
parliamentary elections, the People’s party
won only 30 seats (from a total of 142) in
1954. By contrast, the Baath occupied
only one seat in 1949, but won 22 seats in
1954. Clearly, the pan-Arabist ideology
was winning over the traditional fixation on
alliances with dynastic Arab regimes. The
Brotherhood’s attachment to the traditional
parties and its animosity towards a
radicalized military institution had weak-
ened its political position.38
The rise of Nasserite Egypt, in the
meantime, and its confrontation with the
Egyptian Brotherhood fbrther marginalized
the Syrian Brotherhood’s role in Syrian
parliamentary politics. With the 1954
arrest of the leader of the Egyptian Broth-
erhood, Hasan al-Hudhaibi, the entire Arab
arena endured a period of polarization
between the forces of Arab socialism and
pan-Arabism and those of the Islamic
revival. This explains Sibai’s decision to
MIDDLEEASTPOLICY,VOL.VIII, No. 4, DECEMBER
2001
refrain from running in the 1954 parliamen-
tary race.j” Nasser’s rise to Arab promi-
nence as a result of successful opposition
to Britain’s regional pacts, as well as the
survival of the Nasserite regime following
the Suez War, had a negative impact on the
Syrian Islamic movement. The first
development, Egypt’s neutrality, eliminated
Syria’s Hashemite Iraqi option once and
for all, and with it one of the Brotherhood’s
opportunities to curb the influence of the
military on Syrian life. The second devel-
opment strengthened the appeal of other
political parties, such as the Baath (which
united with Hourani’s Arab Socialist party
in 1952) since it shared much of the
ideological highlights of Nasserism. Thus,
when Sibai ran for election from his
Damascus base in 1957, he scored badly
against Riyadh Malki, brother of the
recently assassinated military leader Adnan
Malki. Both Malkis were Baathi~ts.~”
As expected, the Muslim Brotherhood
opposed plans to unify with Nasser’s Egypt
in 1958. The only other party to adopt a
similar stand was the Communist party.4’
By that time, the Syrian Brotherhood had
turned increasingly towards the task of
lslamizing society rather than the state
through education and the propagation of
moral values. It was during that period that
the Egyptian propaganda machine began to
refer to the Muslim Ikhwan (Brothers)
throughout the Arab World as Ikhwan al-
Shayatin (the Brothers of Satan). It was
also during this period that the leadership of
the Syrian Brotherhood passed to a new
figure, lssam al-Attar. In 1957, Sibai’s
failing health and partial paralysis prompted
him to retire from active leadership in favor
of this Damascene high-school teacher of
Arabic literat~re.~’Although the Brother-
hood opposed the union with Egypt, al-
I22
Attar exercised quite a bit of restraint
during this time by avoiding any open
condemnation of Nasser’s government.
Indeed, the Brotherhood under al-Attar’s
leadership found itself caught between
opposition to Nasser’s regime and support
for Nasser’s demand that the Syrian armed
forces be isolated and prevented from
influencing politics. Unity with Egypt was
also regarded as a way of weakening
Syria’s Communist party. When Nasser
substituted his own party, the National
Union party (al-lttihad al-Qawmi), Syria
was headed towards a single-party system
once more.
Some Syrians claimed that the Broth-
ers and their supporters did actually join the
ranks of the National party in large num-
bers. Even Khaled al-Azm commented on
al-Attar’s puzzling reticence and refusal to
voice any open criticism of the union or the
Egyptian regime after the dissolution of the
union. The only substantive and open
criticism of Nasser was leveled by some
religious figures such as Sheikh Ali al-
Tantawi. He complained in a statement to
Nasser that union with Egypt resulted in
the deterioration of moral standards as
young Egyptian males flooded the Dam-
ascus youth festival. He bitterly com-
plained about the popularization of ballet
dancing for females and students’ co-
educational summer camps. The Brother-
hood was also able to bounce back from
years of inaction by winning three seats
from Damascus as well as seven from the
provinces in the parliamentary elections of
1961. Other Brotherhood figures who won
seats in these same elections included
future leader Abd al-Fattah Abu-Ghuddah
from A l e p p ~ . ~ ~
Following the dissolution of the Syrian-
Egyptian union, al-Attar emerged as a
 TALHAMI: ISLAM, ARAB
NATIONALISM AND THE MILITARY IN S Y R I A
rising political star largely because of his
willingness to build bridges to the armed
forces. Breaking away from the traditional
anti-military stance of the Brotherhood, al-
Attar seems to have been motivated by a
greater fear of the Communist party. The
military insurrection at the two bases of
Qatanah and al-Kiswah in 1961 was
attributed to al-Attar’s influence over Abd
al-Karin al-Nahlawi who spearheaded the
sessionist movement against the union.44
Despite al-Attar’s ability to maneuver
between different political and military
currents in the early 1960s, he was always
conscious of his party’s limitations. He
was never in favor of waging armed
struggle against any Syrian regime. He
always argued that an uprising against the
Baath, firmly in control after 1963, would
only bring about the physical destruction of
the Brotherhood and the people of Syria.
After the military coup of the Baathist
officers in 1963, the Brotherhood came
under increasing attack by the new leader-
ship of Asad and Salah Jadid. Exiled in
1963, al-Attar continued to lead the Broth-
erhood from his new residence in Aachen,
West Germany. The leadership of the
organization passed then to local leaders
such as Marwan Hadid of Hama, until his
death in jail in 1967. Hadid was not
supported by the rest of the Islamic
movement in Damascus, which did not
approve his total determination to seek a
military confrontation with the Baath.
1970-90
The split between the Damascus
leadership and the northern leadership
developed openly in I969 precisely over
the principle of armed conflict with the
ruling regime. The northern leadership,
which supported an armed uprising against
I23
the Baath, included in addition to Hadid the
likes of Said Hawwa, Abd al-Fattah Abu-
Ghuddah and Adnan Saad al-Din. A
mediation effort between the two factions
by Muslim representatives from other Arab
countries failed to bridge this gap. The
split was not repaired until the emergence
of the Syrian lslamic Front in 198I , when
al-Attar once more resumed his involve-
ment as part of the new collective leader-
ship, though from a distance.45
The ability of the Brotherhood to
mount acts of violence against the regime
at Hama beginning in the mid 1960s was
attributed to the availability of training
camps in Jordan and later in Iraq. Hadid
called openly for the arming of all Brothers
in order to challenge the regime over its
plans to conduct a plebiscite on the pro-
posed constitution of 1973. Assassinations
of prominent secularist figures such as
Muhammad al-Fadhel, president of the
University of Damascus, and Yousef al-
Sayigh, a professor at the medical college
and a personal friend of Asad, as well as
bombing incidents in various cities were all
intended to destabilize the new Baathist
regime. The assassinations reached a high
level in 1979, when Soviet officials were
targeted, then reached new heights at
Hama in 1982.4h The battle intensified
when the 1973 constitution was debated,
but the constitution was ratified with a
wide popular margin. Article 3, section I ,
was amended in the old constitution to read
that the religion of the president was Islam
and Islamic jurisprudence was the main-
stay of legislation. Article 1, section 1,
stated that the Arab Syrian Republic is a
democratic, popular and socialist state.47
Groups opposed to the spirit of the
constitution, mainly the Islamists, took to
the streets in massive demonstrations and
MIDDLE VOL.VIII, No. 4,DECEMBER
EASTPOLICY, 2001
riots, especially at Homs and Hama. Said
Hawwa also succeeded in gathering a
large number of signatures from religious
scholars who protested the constitution.
As to the government, the Brotherhood
focused its opposition on whether a non-
Sunni president could ever head the Syrian
state. Asad, in a move to forestall their
criticism, increased his public observance
of the Friday prayers at Damascus’
Umayyid Mosque. As the government’s
response to these acts of resistance
increased, other groups began to express
solidarity with the Brotherhood. The
Lawyers’ Syndicate of Damascus, for
instance, protested publicly on June 22,
1978, the kind of harsh treatment directed
at the Islamists. By February of 1980, the
Engineers’ Union had issued similar
statements calling on the government to
respect the principles of democracy and
human rights.
These independent actions prompted a
crackdown by the government and a
general official effort to create organizations
totally subservient to the regime. General
strikes were then instigated by the Brother-
hood in the northern and coastal cities and
eventually in Damascus. When the Syrian
Islamic Front emerged in 1980 bringing new
allies to the Brotherhood, the Front was led
by Sheikh Muhammad Abu al-Nasr al-
Bayanuni, who represented Aleppo’s
determination to use violent means.4x
The Baath regime, however, not only
crushed the Islamic Front militarily, it was
able to mount a determined and successhl
propaganda campaign against it. The
wave of assassinations, which targeted
leading academic figures in 1976, was said
to have coincided with the Camp David
negotiations. The Baathist regime sug-
gested strongly that the lslamist campaign
124
of destabilization was instigated by the
American CIA, West European govern-
ments and allied Arab regimes such as
Jordan. The Iraqi government, adamantly
opposed to the Asad variation of Baathism,
was also accused of hatching plots against
Syria. The presence of one of the leaders,
Adnan Saad al-Din in Saudi Arabia, and
another, Abu-Ghuddah in the Persian Gulf
area, confirmed the Syrian contention that
the conservative Persian Gulf states were
behind the lslamist uprising. When the
Islamic Front attacked the artillery school
of Aleppo resulting in the death of hun-
dreds of cadets, followed by attacks on
Bathist civilian headquarters and military
offices at Hama in February of 1982, the
regime was deeply involved in Lebanon.
These attacks were viewed as part o f a
wider Zionistlimperialist conspiracy target-
ing Syria during one of its most vulnerable
decades.4y
The Islamic Front was also inspired by
the success of Khomeini’s Islamic regime
in Iran, although there was never any link
established between the two. When one of
the Front’s leaders, al-Bayanuni, was
interviewed by Eric Rouleau on the pages
of Le Monde in May I98 1, he declared
that armed struggle against the Syrian
regime was not enough. This fight should
be followed by a popular uprising, he added,
just like the uprising that swept away the
shah’s regime in Iran.5” In his frequent
references to these violent years, Asad
repeatedly accused the Islamic Front of
collaboration with the Western powers.”
Asad responded to the uprising by
striking back at the Front’s external
sources of support. A Brotherhood training
camp was raided inside Jordan in 1980. and
a prominent critic of the Syrian regime’s
handling of the Islamic uprising, Lebanese
 TAIJIAMI:
ISLAM. ARAB
NATIONALISM
journalist Salim al-Lawzi, was assassi-
nated. A bombing incident resulting in the
death of al-Attar’s wife, Bayan al-Tantawi,
in Aachen in 1981 was also believed to be
the work of the Baathist regime. The I980
murder of former Baathist leader and head
of a pan-Arabist splinter group in Paris,
Salah al-Din Bitar, was attributed to
worsening Syrian-Iraqi relations. The
Asad regime felt besieged and feared plots
by Bitar, who was suspected of enjoying
Saudi or Iraqi backing. Asad’s suspicion of
U.S. collusion with the Islamic uprising
was confirmed on February 10, 1982, when
the U.S. State Department and the
Aachen-based Brotherhood announced the
Hama uprising simultaneously. By that
time, the Hama revolt was one-week old,
but news of it had not yet been leaked to
the outside
Following the quashing of the Islamic
revolt, the Baathist regime adopted certain
measures designed to co-opt the lslamist
movement. A campaign to build more
government-financed mosques was
launched. Sharia institutes were revitalized
and the Asad Institutes for the recitation of
the Quran were started. Beginning in the
early 1980s, the Ministry of Religious
Trusts undertook the task of helping build
these schools upon receiving applications
from specific regions and villages.5’ Syria
began to experience the phenomenon of
official Islam as part of a determined effort
to close all avenues to revolutionary Islam.
Since the accession of Bashar al-Asad
to the presidency, human-rights advocates
and intellectuals impressed upon the regime
the need to ease restrictions on dissent. By
November 16,2000, a general amnesty was
declared resulting in the release of some 600
political prisoners from Syrianjails. The
exiled secretary-general of the Syrian
I25
A N D 1t11 M i L i v m ‘ IN S Y R I A
Muslim Brotherhood in London, Ali Sadr al-
Din al-Bayanuni, retorted that, although this
was a positive development, there were still
thousands of detainees in Syria’s jails.5‘
One of the Bayanuni brothers, Abu-Fateh,
was permitted to return to Syria after being
sent into exile in 1982. Immediately follow-
ing his return, it became clear that he was
part of a move to create a Communist-
intellectual-Islamist front against the Asad
government. Surprisingly,the administration
cracked down on the Coinmunist party,
rearresting its leader, Riyadh al-Turk, but not
on the Islamic leaders. According to some
analysts, al-Bayanuni’s return was a calcu-
lated move by the regime in order to deepen
divisions within the Muslim Brotherhood
resulting from this tactical shift favoring
reconciliation with Syria’s leftists and
communists.” The Muslim Brotherhood, it
seems, is still incapable of mounting an
exclusive campaign against the government.
CONCLUSION
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood had
the unusual experience of participating in
electoral politics in order to achieve its
goals. This facet of the Syrian lslamist
experience sets it apart from other lslainist
movements in the Arab world. Until the
rise ofthe Baath Military Committee in
1963, the Brotherhood was part of the
parliamentary scene. This distinction
points to the contradiction between the
implied revolutionary message of the
Brotherhood and its acquiescence in the
evolutionary parliamentary process of
government in post-independence Syria.
Willingness to run for public oftice before
the complete Islamization of society meant
that the Brotherhood was willing to enter
the world ofcoalitions and political com-
promises irrespective of the restraints on
its ideology. The Brotherhood, thus, was
mired in Syria's chaotic post-independence
politics while simultaneously engaged in its
other task of recruitment and education.
The second distinctive feature of the
Syrian lslamist movement was the stiff
competition it faced from other concurrent
ideological movements. For most of the
Arab world, the virulent Islamic revival of
the 1970s came on the heels of the col-
lapse ofthe modernist Arab nationalist
wave. But for the Syrian Islamists, an
array of ideological configurations made it
difficult for them to swim against the
current. Furthermore, the Islamists were
unwilling to place the Palestine question at
the top of their political agenda as did their
pan-Arab rivals. Rejection of the West, a
belief in the efficacy of arms, and a strong
faith in secularisin and supra-nationalism
forced the other parties to focus on the
Zionist enemy. The Brotherhood, however,
focused on moral values, an enmity to-
wards the military, and a traditional ap-
proach to foreign alliances.
Thirdly, the Syrian Brotherhood was
limited in its recruitment policy and over-
looked the rising military sector as a
potential defender of the state against
outside enemies and as an instrument of
social change. This limited the Islamist
recruitment pool to students and the
professional classes. But even these two
sectors were not exclusively available to
the lslamist organizations since the pan-
Arab parties also targeted these groups.
When the decision was made to
confront the Baath militarily in the late
1970s and early 1980s, the Brotherhood
made the tactical mistake of seeking
refuge in enemy territory: Jordan and Iraq.
This, coupled with the Islamists' alleged
collaboration with the United States.
enabled the Asad regime to mount a
successful vilification campaign against the
Brotherhood. The lslamist uprising,
therefore, failed to rally anti-regime and
pro-democracy forces behind it. The
lslamist movement in the 1980s became a
suspect and isolated phenomenon and was
rendered incapable ofgiving voice to all
forces opposed to the neo-Baath. What
could have been a general uprising against
the Asad brand of Baathisin turned into a
limited insurgency weakened by its foreign
associations.

' Cicorge Jabbour. Al:/ikr trl-sijvrsi d - m'rrs.so,/i-Sorrri~,t/ [Modern Political Thought in Syria] (Ikriul: Al-
Manarah. I993), pp. 142-144.
' Ibid, pp. 141-42.
Ibid, pp. 241-42.
-I Ihid. pp. 139-40, 145-46.

' Hamdan Hamdan. Akrrmi Hoirurrii. rrljiil lil-ttwkh [Akram Hourani. Man of Destiny] (Beirut: Bisan lil-
Nashr. I096). p. 3 IS.
I' U.S. Ilepartinent of State, .'$~itr: Bridigvoi/id N o k s . Vol. V. No. 13, Novcniber. 1994. pp. 1-3.

' Dirasah 19x7, p.47.

Uinar F. Abd-Allah, The I.sltmric Struggle, in L'+~?ri (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 19x3). p. 33.
" Jabbour. op. cit.. p. I 16.

' ' I Abd-Allah, op. cit.. pp. 33, 99.

I ' Ibid. pp. XX-91.

I' Adel Ridha, Qirtrtrli,/i,/ikrrrl-ilstrd [A Reading in Asad's Thought] (Cairo: Dar Akhbar al-Youm, I 993). p.

404.
' ' Muhaminad Khaled Hussein. Soirrijn r~/-niircr.s.sirtrh,IY63-IYY3 [Modern Syria, 1963- lOY3I (Ilamascus:
I)ar Kanan, l996), p. 173.

I26
 TALHAMI:ISLAM,
ARABNATIONALISM
AND THE MILITARY
IN SYRIA

I‘ Naji Abd al-nabi Bazzi, St?*iu,siru ul-istiqtuh [Syria, the Struggle for Co-optation] (Damascus: Dar ibn al

Arabi, 1996). p. 290.

I’ Hamdan. op. cit., p. I2 1.

I h Abd-Allah. op. cit., p. 145.

I’ Jabbour, op. cit.. pp. 345-46, 351.

I’ Ibid, pp. 133-34, 181-83, 242.

’ ” Abd-Allah, op. cit.. p. 100.

:’ Jabbour, op. cit., p. 242.

Bashir Fanseh, A/-Nukhut wu nCmiighamarut [Catastrophes and Adventures] (Damascus: Dar Yarub,
1996), p. 180.
Muhammad Nimer al-Madani, Au‘nun ul-Mulki (Damascus: Al-Dar al-Hadeethah, 1996).
Adnan al-Mallouhi, Akrum Houruni: arruh uI-inqilubutj Soirriyh [Akram Hourani: The Midwife of
Coups in Syria] (Damascus: Dar Dimashq. 1995), pp. 89-90.
:‘Jabbour, op. cit., pp. 145-46.
” Jonathan Owen, Akrum Houruni: dirmuh huwl uI-siyusah al-Souriyuh m c i h~ijw1934-1 954 [Akram
Hourani: A Study on Syrian Politics Between 1934-19541 Wafa Hourani, translator (Homs: Dar al-Maaref,
1997). pp. 110-1 12.
” Hamdan. op. cit., pp. 50-51.
?’ Owen, op. cit., pp. 105-107.

?” Fanseh. op. cit., pp. 94. 100, 207-208, 234-35.

”) Jabbour. op. cit., pp. 12 1-22.

”I Ibid, p. 141.

’I Hamdan. op. cit., pp. 173-75.

3 2 Hani Al-Kheir, Akrum Hmruni: h u w a/-tunaqulut dsiymisuh M U LII-inqilcrhuta/-uskuriwh [Akram

Hourani: Between Political Movements and Military Coups] (Damascus: Maktabat al-Shrq al-Jadid. 1996).
pp. 59, 64-65.
’’ Ibid, p. 7 1.
Owen, op. cit.. p. 131.
Is Fanseh, op. cit., pp. 266. 280, 289.
” Al-Kheir, op. cit., pp. 67-68.
” Bazzi, op. cit., pp. 257-60.
’* Ibid, pp. 259-79.
’”Abd-Allah, op. cit., pp. 97-100.
‘I Jabbour, op. cit., p. 141.

‘I Bazzi, op. cit., pp. 291, 303.

‘:Abd-Allah, op. cit., pp. 100-102.

” Samir Abduh. Hudutha thuti rnarrah,/iSour(yuh [Once Upon a Time in Syria: A Study of Syrian-Arab
Politics in the Periods of Unity and Separation, 1958-19631 (Damascus: Dar Ala &Din, 1998). pp. 34, 110,
114, 118-9.
‘.!Hamdan, op. cit., pp. 374-75.
45 Abd-Allah, op. cit., pp. 101-118.
G Ridha, op. cit., pp. 399-407.
” Al-Asad 1973, p. I I .
‘’ Abd-Allah, op. cit., pp. I 11-30,
411 Hussein, op. cit., pp. 181-82.

”’ Lucien Bitterlin, HU$z ul-Assad: musirut Munadhel [Hafiz al-Assad: The Biography of a Patriot] Elias
Bidyouwi, translator (Damascus: Dar Tlas, 1994), p. 3 12.
Ibid. p. 330.
” Patrick Seale, The Strugglefi)r the Middle Eust (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
pp. 329-31.
Ridha, op. cit., p. 41 7.
” “Asad’s Dispensation,” Middle Em/ /n/ernutionul, No. 638, November 24, 2000, p. 1 1.
’‘ “Syria: Two Arrests and a Return,” Middle Ea.yt Intcwutional, No. 659, September 28, 2001, p. 26.

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