External Contribution – Controlled Pluralism: How Syria’s New Leadership Manages Sunni Islam

On 15–16 February, Syria’s Ministry of Religious Endowments (awqaf) convened its first congress since the fall of the Assad regime. Gathering some 1,500 clerics from across the country, the Ministry unveiled the Charter for the Unity of Islamic Discourse (Mithaq Wahdat al-Khitab al-Islami), presented as a “national covenant for ulama and preachers.” In his address, President Ahmad al-Sharaa framed the initiative as a decisive step toward curbing “sectarian incitement,” underscoring the document’s importance for inter-communal coexistence.

In practice, however, both the congress and the charter were exclusively intra-Sunni undertakings. This reflects not only the Sunni-centric orientation of the new authorities but also a deeper institutional reality: even under the Assads, the Ministry of Religious Endowments exercised little if any authority over Alawite, Druze, Ismaili, or Twelver Shia religious elites.

Against this backdrop, the “unity” the Charter seeks to promote pertains primarily to harmony between Syria’s two principal Sunni currents: the historically dominant traditionalist trend—closely associated with Sufism—and its Salafi counterpart, whose proponents have gained unprecedented influence under the new regime. Particularly significant is the Charter’s call for mutual “recognition” of the theological schools (madhahib aqadiyya) upheld by these camps—Asharism and Maturidism on the traditionalist side, and Ahl al-Hadith among Salafis—alongside affirmation of the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence (madhahib fiqhiyya).

Yet divisions within Syria’s Sunni religious sphere cannot be reduced to a binary confrontation between traditionalists and Salafis. In his address to the congress, al-Sharaa’s advisor for religious affairs, Abd al-Rahim Atun, acknowledged this complexity while clearly signaling the regime’s ambition to centralize the religious field under state authority. In language strikingly reminiscent of that employed by Assad’s former Minister of Religious Endowments, Muhammad Abd al-Sattar al-Sayyid, on the eve of the 2011 uprising, Atun urged a transition from the present landscape—characterized by “scattered religious groups (jamaat)”—toward “integration into a plan designed by the state.” Such integration, he argued, would ensure the “unity and coherence” of religious activity while preserving doctrinal diversity.

The drive to expand the state’s religious bureaucracy has already materialized in the establishment of new departments within the Ministry of Religious Endowments, such as those in charge of supervising halqat (informal mosque-based study circles) and ruqiya (healing through religious incantation). Although it remains too early to assess how these ambitions will further unfold, appointments made thus far within religious institutions point to the new regime’s markedly pragmatic approach. Rather than installing Salafi-leaning affiliates of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) across the board, al-Sharaa has accorded a prominent role to a range of other religious actors. Foremost among them are members of the Syrian Islamic Council (SIC), a body established in Istanbul in 2014 by dissident ulama. Until 2024, the SIC was ostensibly aligned with HTS’s political and military adversaries—namely the National Coalition, the Syrian Interim Government, and the Syrian National Army—and issued numerous fatwas condemning al-Sharaa’s organization. Despite this adversarial history, the new president has recognized that SIC leaders far surpassed HTS-affiliated clerics in terms of religious legitimacy. In March 2025, he therefore appointed the SIC’s chairman, traditionalist Sheikh Usama al-Rifai as Grand Mufti, while simultaneously ordering the dissolution of his Council and, crucially, the closure of the website that hosted its anti-HTS fatwas. 

SIC members were allocated six of the fifteen seats on the Higher Fatwa Council chaired by al-Rifai. Their selection was calibrated to mirror the former SIC’s own internal diversity. Abu al-Kheir Shukri, a close associate of al-Rifai, was also appointed as Minister of Religious Endowments in March 2025, a choice arguably related to the fact that he taught religious lessons to the young Ahmad al-Sharaa at the al-Shafii Mosque in the Mezze neighborhood of Damascus. Mufti of Homs Sahl Junayd and Khayr Allah Talib are affiliated with two major components of the SIC, namely, the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned League of Syrian Ulama and the Salafi-oriented Sham Islamic Committee.

Although they hold one fewer seat than former SIC members on the Higher Fatwa Council, core HTS affiliates occupy roles in parallel that are no less strategically significant. Atun’s position as presidential advisor for religious affairs was created ad hoc in May 2025 to counterbalance al-Rifai’s appointment as Grand Mufti; Mazhar al-Ways serves as Minister of Justice; Anas al-Musa acts as assistant to the Minister of Religious Endowments for religious instruction; and Ibrahim Shasho holds the post of Mufti of Aleppo.

A third, smaller bloc within the Higher Fatwa Council consists of four traditionalist scholars who remained in regime-held areas throughout the war. Several are affiliated with religious institutions long aligned with the former regime—an indication of al-Sharaa’s preference for accommodation over extensive purge. Among them is Abd al-Fattah al-Bazam, director of the al-Fath Islamic Institute and Mufti of Damascus since 1993, as well as Muhammad Wahbi Sulayman, head of the Kaftaro Academy, an Islamic seminary named after the Baathist-era Grand Mufti Ahmad Kaftaro (in office, 1964–2004).

Lower-level appointments paint a similarly mixed picture. Provincial directorates of religious endowments have been divided between former SIC members—such as Samir Bayraqdar in Damascus, Rafaat Abd al-Fattah in Rural Damascus, and Muaz Rayhan in Hama—and HTS affiliates, including Abd al-Hamid al-Khalaf in Idlib, Samir al-Hammud in Homs, and Khalid Amro in Latakia. There has likewise been no wholesale replacement of existing mosque personnel with Salafi clerics. In Damascus, where I was able to conduct field research in December 2025, and in Aleppo, most preachers either remained in place after the fall of Assad or were replaced by returnees of traditionalist orientation.

Nonetheless, al-Sharaa’s drive for control has concentrated key senior positions in the hands of HTS affiliates. These include two assistant ministers of Religious Endowments (Anas al-Musa and Diya al-Din Barsha), the director of the Department of Religious Education (Abd al-Rahman Rahmun), and the head of the Central Department for Mosques. The latter, a critical monitoring body first established in Idlib under the HTS-aligned Syrian Salvation Government, is currently led by Siraj al-Din Zurayqat—a controversial figure who previously headed the Lebanese branch of the jihadist organization Abdallah Azzam Brigades.