The first public appearance of secularism in this region, and officially as a concept, was nearly three decades ago, in the context of a discussion that took place at Dar al-Hikma in Cairo between Qaradawi and Muhammad al-Ghazali on the side of the muslim Brotherhood and Fouad Zakaria and Farag Foda on the secular side, Secularism was something unknown to the general public, After campaigns of defamation and excommunication, it became, in the view of some, a symbol of evil and disbelief, and in the view of others, a symbol of good and progress.
But despite all that, secularism has turned in recent decades into a methodology of utmost importance, It has turned into the barrier that prevents and resists the fundamentalist tide and the attempt to merge religion with the state, or in other words, to resist the religiousization of politics and the establishment of a religious state. If Farag Foda and Fouad Zakaria were to be among us now, they would be overwhelmed with astonishment at the expansion of secularism and its position as the pole resisting the fundamentalist tide, despite its short lifespan compared to the relatively long political lifespan of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Before the Dar al-Hikma session, there was the secular thought of Antoun Saadeh. Therefore, Saadeh is considered the first secularist in this region, He thought about and interpreted secularism without using the word secularism, as this word did not exist in the literature of the Syrian National Party before Saadeh’s death, After his death, the matter developed and the Syrian National Social thought became titled secularism.
In contrast, Bashar al-Assad was the first Arab political and sectarian official to use the term secularism, but unlike Saadeh, who understood the content very deeply, Assad’s motive for using this term, considering Syria as “the last stronghold of secularism in this region,” may have been an attempt to blackmail the West or to flatter the West! Bashar al-Assad lacked a true understanding of secularism, His secularism had two dimensions, The first centered on the necessity of combating factions like ISIS and al-Nusra, driven by polarization with the rival Iranian axis, which was at odds with the ideological orientations of these groups, The second dimension involved the pretense of protecting minorities, However, the only minority that actually received protection was, in practice, the newly established Assadist sect, The essence of the matter was the family’s control and dominance, aided by its henchmen, particularly Sunnis, There was no protection for other minorities, whose presence has dwindled considerably, For example, the Christian minority, which constituted 13% of the total population in 2011, now numbers less than 1.5%, They have emigrated and fled! Those who remain are now waiting for visas to Europe, America, Canada, Australia, or elsewhere. The Armenians (who were 2% of the population) are now virtually nonexistent, The Kurds have separated and embarked on the path of independence or autonomy, The mountain is practically under Israeli protection.
The concept of protecting minorities in the Assadist perspective was centered on the literal meaning of the word, i.e., physical protection, Therefore, a minority was given free rein to practice absolute corruption, protected by the authority, because this minority was the most important source of henchmen, Even physical protection regarding this minority failed, as throwing this minority into a civil war for the sake of the newly created Assadist sect led to the widowing of its women, the bereavement of its sons, and the loss of its youth.
The concept of protecting minorities under Assad did not include other important aspects such as guaranteeing freedom of expression and the freedom of minorities to practice their culture, such as the Kurds, Thus, Bashar al-Assad’s secularism represented a complete disregard for pluralism, indeed a war against it, by imposing Arabism and sectarianism on society, thereby abolishing freedom of conscience and freedom of thought politically, socially, and historically, In addition, Bashar al-Assad’s “secularism” ignored the fundamental principle of the separation of religion and state, and even contributed to merging religion with the state (Project No. 16), The use of the term secularism was not accompanied by an understanding of its implications, On the contrary, everything he did, such as aligning with the Iranian axis, was a war against secularism, The mullahs are the natural antithesis of secularism, Bashar al-Assad knew nothing of secularism but the name, and he practiced his political sectarianism in a manner similar to that of the Muslim Brotherhood—another Brotherhood, but an antithesis!
No minority, whether religious or political, can protect itself alone, because protection is everyone’s responsibility, One of the most important ways to expose any minority to danger is through control, Control by a religious majority also poses a danger to it, as it poses a danger to the state, In general, the Assad regime did not invent the concept of control for protection, nor did the Assad regime seize the dynamic political concept of minority-majority and impose it on sects and on the sectarian minority and majority, The matter began 1450 years ago with the invention of the concept of takfir (excommunication), which infiltrated even the core of a single sect, to divide this sect into a saved group and a doomed group.
The takfir (excommunication) established in the texts has expanded and grown in several forms, such as the form of the Pact of Umar, then considering the infidel as not equal to the believer in his rights and duties, and in the form of practices that are still present to this moment,An example of this is what the Mufti of Egypt, Dr. Shawqi Allam, admitted about the existence of 3,000 fatwas ordering the demolition of the places of worship of infidels in Egypt, guided by the hadith “There are not two ‘qiblas ‘(religious reference)in one country.” Guided by this hadith, Caliph Umar Ibn Abd al-Aziz ordered the demolition of the places of worship of infidels in Yemen, Harun al-Rashid ordered the demolition of the places of worship in Baghdad, and the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah demolished the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and changed its name to the Church of Garbage, and Caliph al-Mutawakkil took charge of the demolition of almost all the churches in Iraq.
Looking at the fatwas of Ibn Baz and others is astonishing, and Erdogan’s actions with Hagia Sophia are astonishing, and what Abdullah Rushdi is promoting is disgusting, as is the Algerian Sheikh Hamdash regarding the demolition of places of worship, The list of actions that reject others and glorify the concept of sectarian minorities and majorities (the heinous concept of the dominant majority) is very long, As a result, the Assad regime was nothing but a link in the sectarian chain, which fragmented and divided even the single sect, The Assad regime did not invent anything new, but rather accumulated on the old, and continued in this regard guided by the approach of Ibn Taymiyyah and others.
Anton Saadeh understood, refuted, analyzed, and explained secularism and its principles, which were mentioned in the party’s literature under the name of reformist principles, Anyone who compares the statements and pronouncements of some, such as Assad, Erdogan, and others, with the intellectual and cultural capital—both doctrinal and institutional—of the Syrian Social Nationalist Movement will be astonished by the intellectual illiteracy of some, The Syrian Social Nationalist Movement defined secularism as a system of thought, approach, order, and culture, distinguished in its broad outlines from others by several principles, such as the principle of separating religion from the state, the principle of preventing religious figures from interfering in political affairs, and the removal of barriers between sects, In explaining these reformist principles, Saadeh said that the Syrian nation-state “stands alongside religious, philosophical, or theological ideas related to the mysteries of the soul, immortality, the Creator, and what lies beyond the material world, or metaphysics.” However, it—the Syrian nation-state—stands against the political direction of religion, that is, political religion, In other words, “we cannot, in our pursuit of truth, view religion through a political lens, nor politics through a political lens.” “From a religious perspective,” it is better for a person to be a believer in religion than to be a believer in politics. In his letter to Ghassan Tueni, Saadeh wrote, “Social nationalism does not interfere in matters of religious faith and does not want to impose certain ‘religious truths’ on its members, Let whoever wants to believe what he wants, and let everyone who has an opinion express his opinion, and let whoever wants to agree with it and whoever wants to disagree with it, Religious faith is tested by a person in his religion, not in his nationality, The nation and the state and their political, administrative, economic, military, legal and judicial affairs are not matters of religion.”
No Syrian citizen can be protected from being controlled and dominated except by secularism, whose foundations and objectives were explained by His Excellency, and which has proven its worth and effectiveness in most countries of the world.
