Islamic Awakening in Syria and Tunisia

01 May 2011 | 04:20 Code : 12336 Middle East.

By Hojjat-o-llah Joudaki

IRD: Perhaps the only media that believed that the Tunisian uprising against the secular tyranny of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was essentially Islamic was Iran's state-run TV, which even went as far as claiming that after Ben Ali’s flight, Tunisians were finally permitted to hold Friday prayers after a period of fifty years! This story may shed more light on such false perceptions: a few days ago, I met two Iranian professors who had recently visited Tunisia. Their accounts were anything but heartening: the Tunisian media has a sharp tongue in criticizing Iran and Shi’ism, so much so that even leaders of the Islamist movement Al-Nahda have been convinced to discard the Iranian model of governance and adopt the Turkish one.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that the Tunisian media are attacking Shi’ism and fueling Iranophobia. Radical Shi’a convert Muhammad al-Tijani -whose divisive books serve as a powerful tool in widening the gap between Shi’as and Sunnis- has returned to Tunisia to promote his ideal Shi’a system. Al-Tijani who split from Rashid Al-Gannushi’s Al-Nahda movement long ago, has depicted such a terrifying image of Shi’ism that even we believers in this branch of Islam have to dissociate ourselves from what is not at all in compliance with the Shi’a Imams’ traditions and Qur’anic teachings (our holy book invites Muslims to unity and warns them of schism: “and hold fast by the covenant of Allah all together and be not disunited, and remember the favor of Allah on you when you were enemies, then he united your hearts so by his favor you became brethren; and you were on the brink of a pit of fire, then he saved you from it, thus does Allah make clear to you his communications that you may follow the right way” (The Family of ‘Imran, 103).)

In another corner of Middle East, Syrians have stood up for their rights like their Arab brethren in other countries. Although Syria has for long been under secular rule, unlike Tunisia its leaders have failed to shake its citizens’ religious beliefs. Thus, even after forty years of orthodox secularism, female teachers have the motive to demonstrate and call for freedom to wear the hijab at school. Sporadic protests by Syrian society strands turned political and spread to all the major cities due to the government’s embarrassing handling of the situation, which involved a violent crackdown and the murder of ordinary citizens by plainclothes thugs. The government concessionary decision to loosen the 40-year old state of emergency turned into a fiasco and fueled the anger of citizens after being revoked in less than 48 hours (according to the Syrian Minister of Justice, demonstrators shall receive the government’s permission for any gathering, while the government reserves the right to disqualify the protests if it wants to!)

Hearing the chants of Allah-u-Akbar [God is the greatest], Muhammad Rasul-u-llah [Muhammad is his messenger] and As-Shahid Habib-u-llah [Martyrs are God’s loved ones] in the Syrian protests shows that unlike other regional uprisings, speaking of an Islamic awareness in Syria rings true. As another piece of evidence, the Syrian Minister of Culture has accused the protestors of aiming to replace pan-Arabism with Islam. What he should know is that neither pan-Arabism nor even anti-Zionism will heal the deep wounds the security services have left on the bodies and minds of Syria’s citizens.

*Hojjat-o-llah Joudaki is historiographer and Middle East expert.