Sociologist Sari Hanafi’s relationship with Syria extends beyond his work as a researcher observing political change. He spent 25 years in Yarmouk refugee camp and Damascus. His outlook was shaped by an occupation that uprooted Palestinians from their land and an authoritarian regime that tightened its grip on Syrians for decades. His return, two weeks after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, was therefore both a return to a place of personal significance and an encounter with a country emerging from one of the region’s harshest experiences.
In this exclusive interview with Noon Post, Hanafi examines Syria’s current transition as a sociologist committed to freedom and wary of political certainties. He discusses the hopes that liberation has brought, alongside the questions and risks involved in building a new state.
Hanafi is a professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut (AUB), director of its Centre for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies and chair of its Islamic Studies programme. He was elected a Fellow for Life of the British Academy in recognition of his contributions to the humanities and social sciences. He has authored and edited 11 books and is considered one of the leading Arab sociologists working on political sociology, the sociology of knowledge and religion, migration, and transitional justice.
You often begin interviews about Syria by discussing your first return after the regime’s fall and its particular symbolic significance. When did you first visit Syria after liberation? Where did you go? What was on your mind in those first days and weeks?
I may not be exaggerating when I say that the day Syria was liberated was one of the happiest days of my life. I witnessed the fall of the Assad family’s regime, a system deeply entrenched in corruption, systematic torture, widespread human rights violations, sectarian rule and cronyism.
I am Palestinian. I spent a quarter of a century in Yarmouk refugee camp and Damascus, growing up immersed in the struggle against two forms of oppression: Israeli settler-colonialism on the one hand and brutal authoritarianism in Syria on the other. The regime’s fall was therefore more than a political event for me; it was both a personal and a historical moment. The era of the bloodthirsty tyrant had ended, and I now await the day when Palestine is liberated from Israel’s genocidal regime.
I visited Syria just two weeks after liberation. When I reached the Syrian border, I felt much as I had when I first visited Palestine. I felt a sense of personal victory and something resembling justice for a people who had been almost completely exhausted.
I first went to Umayyad Square, which had become a symbol of liberation, and then visited Yarmouk refugee camp, where I was born. My ties to that place are intimate and profound, beyond what words can convey. I also visited my aunts and relatives, whom I had not seen for 14 years. I had been barred from entering Syria in 2010, before the Syrian revolution.
You reject explanations of Islamist movements based solely on their texts and ideological sources, arguing that they change with their political and social contexts. What evidence shows that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) transformation extends to its ideology and institutions, rather than merely reflecting temporary pragmatism driven by the need for international legitimacy and the consolidation of power?
For more than a decade, I have studied the published ideological reassessments of Abu Musab al-Suri, Abu Yazan al-Shami and Abu Mahmoud al-Falastini. I have traced how these ideological shifts influenced the transformation of Jabhat al-Nusra, which later became Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, into a more moderate and pragmatic Islamist organisation.
I have great confidence in the analyses of my friends Patrick Haenni and Jerome Drevon, who published a book titled People-Powered Transformation: HTS’s Path to Power in Syria. The book was published in English, and work is currently under way to translate it into Arabic.
The book draws on the authors’ extensive research, including interviews with Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and others dating back to the early days of the Syrian revolution. It offers a wealth of detailed insights into HTS’s evolution. One development that caught my attention was HTS’s shift from Salafism to the Shafi‘i school of jurisprudence in 2016, in an attempt to adapt to Idlib’s social environment and gain acceptance among its residents.
In my view, there are numerous signs of substantive change within HTS. What the organisation did in the past, and what it is doing today, largely reflects the interaction between Islamic jurisprudence and its social context. This is why I use the concept of pragmatism, which is not foreign to the evolution of Islamic jurisprudence itself.
We have therefore seen political flexibility in many of the positions adopted by the new government or administration, whether in response to the demands of international politics and the consolidation of power or to the needs arising from political circumstances. At the same time, we are seeing inconsistencies that become particularly apparent under pressure from more hardline factions, either within HTS itself or in other Islamist movements with a rigid Salafist orientation.
These tendencies are far removed from the prevailing urban religious traditions of Damascus, Aleppo and Hama. At times, this extremist current seeks to impose a single set of public morals on a deeply diverse Syrian society.
You have said that Syria’s transition could move towards democracy if it meets the challenges of freedom and equal citizenship. Where does Syria stand today on these two measures? What signs would convince you that the transition had taken a turn towards a new authoritarianism, regardless of the clear decline in violence compared with the Assad era?
As I have written before, I take a normative position on democracy, or what some prefer to call a system of binding shura (consultation), drawing on the Islamic intellectual tradition. As a researcher in political sociology, I have yet to find a better model than democracy grounded in its fundamental principles: freedoms, equality, citizenship, multiparty pluralism and acceptance that different conceptions of the good can coexist within society.
Of course, there are different models of democracy. Some are majoritarian, as in many European countries. Others are culturally pluralist, taking account of a country’s cultural, ethnic and religious diversity, as is the case, to varying degrees, in Canada and Australia.
Unfortunately, I do not believe democracy occupies a central place in the political imagination of Syria’s new administration. The absence of discussion about it deeply concerns me. But could Syria make a transition towards democracy? My answer is yes, provided political parties and civil society organisations fight for it and put pressure on the political system to respect democratic principles.
Democracy must not be understood merely as a set of electoral procedures. It must be grounded in a balance between freedom and equality and in the pursuit of social justice, including the fair distribution of wealth. Society must agree on a conception of justice, while allowing individuals and groups to hold different conceptions of the good.
Based on my observations of Syria today, there are signs that several freedoms are being respected, including freedom of opinion, belief and conscience. There is also a degree of equality, at least in the way the public administration treats people. The new administration has released all prisoners, reduced bureaucratic corruption, and established the Syrian Development Fund and a transitional justice commission.
There are also many negative signs. In my view, the new administration prioritises loyalty over competence, as is evident in many government appointments. I am concerned by the lack of transparency and the clear absence of planning.
How can Syrians emerge from the dire situation left behind by the Assad regime? We are talking about a devastated and bankrupt country, with roughly half its population displaced or living as refugees. Have you heard of a committee tasked with studying reconstruction? Where should reconstruction take place, and how should it be carried out? The projects we occasionally hear about sometimes seem to be acts of presidential generosity rather than part of a clear public policy.
Another question is who actually runs the institutions: the minister or the sheikh? Everyone talks about a small circle that makes political decisions outside the executive institutions that are supposed to be responsible for policymaking. Have we seen regular cabinet meetings? How can complex issues such as sustainable development and transitional justice be discussed without weekly deliberations among ministers?
Based on my field research, I see important issues being discussed in very narrow circles. The presidency is also stripping ministries of many of their powers and establishing competing bodies that report directly to the president. Since the new administration prioritises loyalty over competence, it is only natural to ask whose interests take precedence in appointments. Consider, for example, the appointment of the agriculture minister as head of the National Commission for Combating Illicit Gains. Does this not involve a conflict of interest?
The foreign ministry’s powers are also expanding to the point where it is becoming responsible for almost everything, including security clearances for lectures and any cooperation with international institutions. In practice, this marginalises the authority of many other ministries and institutions. A European ambassador in Syria told me that the ministry does not respond to the embassy’s emails, while Europeans wait for approval for vital projects in the country. Does the new administration not realise that requiring approval to hold a seminar is a hallmark of the Assad regime’s suppression of academic and civic life?
At the same time, the president has declared his opposition to sectarian power-sharing modelled on Lebanon or Iraq, and he is right to oppose it. Yet he is also marginalising minorities. There is, for example, only one female minister, who is Christian — two forms of underrepresentation in one. This deeply concerns me. Yes, I see this as the beginning of a drift towards authoritarianism.
To some extent, it reminds me of the conduct of the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, followed by Mahmoud Abbas, in the Palestinian territories. The marginalisation of institutions weakened them, leaving the Palestinian political system fragile.
In December 2024, you called for a transitional body bringing together military figures, technocrats and politicians, with legitimacy derived from consultation, national representation and oversight. To what extent has the current People’s Assembly fulfilled that vision? Can genuine transitional legitimacy be built when a single political centre still largely determines how institutions are selected and powers distributed?
The formation of the current People’s Assembly is a very important milestone, particularly given the authoritarian tendencies I see today. I understand the circumstances in which it was formed, in the absence of a referendum and without precise knowledge of the demographic changes Syria has undergone. Nevertheless, I hope it will help resist the drift towards authoritarianism.
It will not be able to fulfil that role, however, without political parties free to operate in Syria, elected rather than appointed trade unions, and a civil society capable of acting as a genuine intermediary between individuals and the state.
You have interpreted Ahmed al-Sharaa’s avoidance of terms such as democracy and secularism, particularly in his early speeches, and his references to law, the constitution and returning to the people, as an attempt to use a form of “public reason” that makes sense in the Syrian context. How do you see democracy in Syria today? Is it out of reach and absent from the executive’s agenda, particularly if we understand it as a political condition and system rather than simply free and fair elections?
President Ahmed al-Sharaa does avoid terms such as “democracy” and “secularism” in his media appearances. Nevertheless, many Islamist movements have begun using the word “secularism”, or at least the concept of a “civil state”.
As you know, I devoted an entire chapter of my latest book, Against Symbolic Liberalism: A Call for a Dialogical Sociology, published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, to criticising the French model of secularism. In some of its applications, this model has come to resemble an anti-religious religion, based on a strict separation between religion and the state.
I understand secularism differently: as a distinction between the religious and political spheres, and the state’s relative neutrality towards its citizens.
Religious and cultural practices generally form part of people’s conceptions of the good, and some may also form part of their conception of justice. A woman, for example, has the right to choose whether to wear the hijab. Of course, there are conceptions of the common good on which society can agree, such as cleanliness or prohibiting nude swimming in public places. But under conditions of globalisation and pluralism, the scope of what can be considered a common good narrows, while recognition of different conceptions of the good expands.
I follow debates across Syrian media, both official and unofficial, from Al-Ikhbariya to Syria TV. I see at least some debate grounded in the idea of public reason: dialogue that uses arguments everyone can understand and accept, regardless of their religion or degree of religiosity, to establish a conception of social justice in Syria.
At the same time, some elements within HTS, alongside certain extremist Islamist movements, are attempting to impose a single set of public morals on Syrian society. In Latakia, for example, there have been attempts to prevent female employees from going to work wearing make-up, while other efforts have sought to ban alcohol sales in Damascus. All of this runs counter to the plurality of conceptions of the good in Syria’s diverse society.
How do you assess the position of liberals in Syria after liberation? Could it be said that they have withdrawn from efforts to develop political debate within society and entered into an unjustified or premature confrontation with the authorities, based on preconceived assumptions?
Several months ago, I wrote an article titled “How Do Symbolic Liberals View Post-Assad Syria?”, in which I criticised the tendency of some liberals, though not all, to see the glass as half empty rather than look at the whole picture. In my view, this form of Syrian symbolic liberalism has four characteristics.
First, symbolic liberals are unable to conceive of a conservative revolution. If a revolution is not progressive, they believe it must be condemned. Consequently, if they dislike the conservative elite leading the transition, they call for the revolution to be stripped of its legitimacy, even if this means aligning themselves with the military power of the old regime, as happened in Egypt.
In their view, all political parties can change their programmes, but Islamists cannot. They are seen either as “Sunni fascists” or simply as jihadists, and understood only as disciples of early 20th-century thinkers such as Sayyid Qutb and Abu al-A‘la al-Mawdudi.
Second, the philosophical models on which they rely do not pay sufficient attention to contributions from the social sciences.
Third, symbolic liberals write with a high degree of certainty, often charged with emotion and tied to the logic of identity politics. This logic constructs an in-group that defines itself by excluding an out-group. Such ideological certainty seeks to eliminate opponents rather than engage in dialogue with them. All this is happening while Syria remains in transition and the new regime’s conduct sends mixed signals.
Fourth, they manufacture an adversary, often by focusing on extremists. Consider the case of Batoul Alloush, a 21-year-old Syrian Alawite woman who became more religious and left her family. Symbolic liberals argue that the religious climate surrounding the case contains clear elements of incitement. They point, for example, to a statement by the Damascus-based Salafi sheikh Abdul Razzaq al-Mahdi, who issued a “fatwa” on 10 May declaring that Batoul should not be returned to her family because they were persecuting her for her religious choices.
The most revealing phrase in his statement, however, was “after her conversion to Islam”, which indirectly denies her family’s religious legitimacy. I put “fatwa” in quotation marks because its sociological significance today is far weaker than some people imagine. The authority of fatwas has declined enormously among younger generations. Fatwas prohibiting rebellion against the ruler did not prevent the Arab revolutions. Nor did even Abu Ubaida’s repeated calls succeed in mobilising Arab and Muslim populations in a sweeping uprising in support of the Palestinian resistance, despite the immense emotional and religious symbolism those calls carried.
These statements also do not represent Syria’s official religious establishment, represented by the Grand Mufti of the Republic, Sheikh Osama al-Rifai. From a liberal perspective, preachers have the right to address believers in religious language, even when that language conflicts with some prevailing civil norms — that is, the arguments of public reason — as long as they do not call for hatred of others or for violence, as stated in one of the Ministry of Endowments’ statements.
How do you interpret the events in the coastal region and Suwayda? Do you classify them as acts of revenge for what the Sunni majority endured over 60 years, or is the picture more complex?
I draw a clear distinction between my normative position, rooted in my human rights activism, which leads me to condemn the massacres on the coast and in Suwayda in the strongest terms, and my sociological analysis, which seeks to understand why they occurred.
Just as the events of 7 October in Gaza cannot be understood without reference to the history of Israeli settler-colonialism, the coastal massacres cannot be separated from Syria’s bloody history, the delay in launching a transitional justice process, and the fragility of the recently formed Syrian army.
As for the Suwayda massacre, some symbolic liberals continue to analyse what happened as nothing more than sectarian dynamics involving a confrontation between Sunnis and Druze. This reductive interpretation overlooks the work of prominent Syrian researchers on the region’s Bedouin communities, such as Hayan Dukhan and Don Shatti, who compared what happened in Suwayda with the dynamics seen in Darfur — namely, conflict between pastoralists and farmers.
They emphasised the need to consider the history of external incitement, alongside the current economic crisis and the effects of climate change and global warming, to understand tensions between communities. Explaining such conflicts primarily through a sectarian or ethnic lens only exacerbates them. In my view, symbolic liberals do not pay sufficient attention to the mismatch between their explanatory models and emerging social realities.
The new administration, however, has learned from its grave mistakes in both massacres. It has also succeeded in resolving the issue of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and taken steps that I consider positive, in line with what communitarian liberals advocate: respect for the distinctiveness of ethnic communities.
Here I am referring to the Kurds, who have indeed suffered historical injustice in Syria and throughout the region. I was very pleased by the integration of Kurds and SDF personnel into the Syrian army and state institutions, and I hope this process will be completed in due course.
Do Syria’s ongoing economic changes point to the emergence of a new oligarchy combining political influence and wealth? People are complaining about rising prices and investment projects bearing the hallmarks of capitalism in a country more than half of which has been destroyed. How can Syria’s middle class be rebuilt?
The shape of the Syrian economy is not yet clear. What worries me is that the lack of transparency could lead to a new oligarchy resembling the corrupt Assad clique. When loyalty takes precedence over competence, conditions are ripe for the emergence of groups that combine political influence with wealth.
What concerns me even more is that the new regime does not yet appear to have a clear vision of a social market economy — that is, a market economy opposed to neoliberalism. Nor does it appear to have a vision resembling the “Islamic socialism” advocated by the late Mustafa al-Sibai.
I also see no serious interest in cooperatives. As you know, the state could develop cooperatives in many sectors, including electricity. Instead of allowing a foreign company to provide almost all the investment in this sector and charge citizens high prices, it would be possible to establish a joint-stock company or cooperative in which Syrians at home and in the diaspora could participate.
Citizens would then become partners in decision-making and share in the company’s success, sustainability and profitability. At the same time, the company would not exploit consumers by charging high prices. Consumers themselves could be shareholders in an electricity cooperative.
I used to think that the SDF’s popularity in Europe was primarily due to the strength of the Kurdish lobby there. But I discovered that its popularity, particularly among the European left, is also linked to its success in establishing agricultural, industrial and service cooperatives in the Jazira region, although these activities have not always included Arabs.
I regret that the new regime has shown insufficient interest in this cooperative experience. Nor has it done enough to reach out to Syrians, particularly those in the diaspora, to encourage them to invest in rebuilding their country.
As you know, the Zionist entity relied primarily on Israel Bonds from its establishment until the mid-1950s, with a large proportion purchased by members of the Jewish diaspora. These bonds played an important role in financing the development of the nascent state. I therefore find it surprising that no comparable initiative has yet emerged in Syria.
Naturally, I was pleased when the administration organised solidarity campaigns in certain cities, such as Idlib and Aleppo. The problem, however, is that these remained one-off campaigns rather than becoming part of a sustainable institutional system.
Young people in Syria are living through an exceptional moment and bearing a historic responsibility. What would you recommend to young people active in society amid the country’s major transformations?
Young people can do a great deal to curb some of the authoritarian tendencies within the new regime by developing civil society and compelling extremist elements within the regime to accept power-sharing and respect Syrian society’s cultural and religious pluralism.
Personally, however, I place greater emphasis on social movements and trade union activity than on general talk about “youth activism”. I am pleased to see demonstrations over specific demands and services taking place in Syria today, alongside movements defending human rights and women’s rights.
All this is encouraging, despite my serious concerns about certain authoritarian tendencies that cannot be justified on the grounds that we are still in transition.
In my view, the real challenge is to ensure that the transitional period does not become an excuse to postpone democracy, but an opportunity to build its institutions. This requires a state that accommodates society’s pluralism, an independent civil society, free political parties and trade unions, social justice, and citizenship in which religious, ethnic or cultural differences do not become grounds for marginalisation. Liberation from authoritarianism is not complete with the fall of the tyrant. It begins the day after his fall.