Syria's Unpredictable Force: The State-Sanctioned Clergy

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Even before the message is delivered in the form of a Friday sermon, the medium is already humming with an efficiency that makes the Abu Nour Mosque one of the Arab world's most startling examples of Islamic evangelism.

In a nine-floor building of white stone and black marble, its windows graced with a stone arabesque, two cinema-like screens display a nearly 20-year-old speech by Syria's late grand mufti to thousands on red carpets in the worship hall waiting for the Friday prayers. Overhead, along white columns supporting the vaulted ceiling, four television sets broadcast the same images. Captions beneath the taped message direct worshipers to http://www.abunour.net/ and another Web site. The sites clock 200,000 hits a month.

Inside curtained cubicles, interpreters render versions of the Arabic speech into English, Russian and French. On the Web site and in DVDs, that sermon and others are available in a number of other languages: Spanish, Japanese, Turkish and Chinese.

The sermon that follows is tame, a homily on the importance of scholarship in Islam. The reach is what matters -- propelled by a generous, donation-driven budget and the growing religiosity of Syria's society, and tolerated by an ostensibly secular government.

As in virtually every Arab country, a generation-long religious revival is reshaping Syria, long known as one of the Middle East's most secular states. For decades, the Muslim Brotherhood was the most visible face of Islamic activism, taking the country to the brink of civil war in the early 1980s before retreating under a crackdown whose legacy still shadows the country. The Brotherhood remains a force inside Syria, but in terms of institutions, organization and followers, it is the state-sanctioned version of Islam -- Abu Nour is an example -- that wields the most influence and that may emerge as one of the most dynamic currents in a time of change.

Its institutions are spreading their influence in Syria, with access to both money and media. While careful in their criticism, its preachers have a greater sway than others in their revivalist mission. The government draws red lines, but sees in their moderate message a counterbalance to a more radical Islam and in their strength an ally in its confrontation with the United States.

The space they have begun to enjoy makes for an unpredictable force in a diverse country of 18 million. While often portrayed as a state teetering between dictatorship and democracy, Syria is far more complicated, its destiny far more opaque. At work are struggles between secular and religious forces, government and opposition figures and, at Abu Nour and elsewhere, government-backed clergy and a more radical strand buoyed by the war in Iraq. All are shaping the identity of a country where the prospect of change -- still undefined and fiercely debated -- courses through almost any conversation.

The sense of transition is so strong that some government-allied preachers are already beginning to ponder their reputation in the event of tumult or the government's fall. Across the border is the example of Iraq, where the clergy, both Sunni and Shiite Muslim, emerged in the chaotic aftermath of the U.S. invasion in 2003 as one of the few institutions able to exert influence.

'Biding Their Time'

"They're simply biding their time at this stage, knowing that things will come their way, that their organizational skills will allow them to fill any gap," said Ammar Abdulhamid, a publisher who runs a nongovernmental organization in Damascus that focuses on civic awareness. "They're in no hurry. They've bided their time for decades, and they're very patient."

Syria and, in particular, its capital remain far more secular than many other Arab locales -- Cairo or Baghdad, for instance. Damascus's cobblestoned Old City has undergone a renaissance. Its distinctive houses, with their balconies suspended over winding alleys, have given way to festive bars and chic restaurants that cater to the late-night hours of Syria's moneyed classes.

But the struggle over identity in Syria often plays out in spheres where the state has little control. The faithful are drawing borders between themselves and a Baathist government that came to power more than 40 years ago in the name of secular Arab nationalism. The veil for women is the most common manifestation, and its spread in the past decade remains striking. Other outward shows of piety also are widespread: men wearing beards and forgoing gold rings, which the prophet Muhammad is said to have discouraged. More and more Syrians visit mosques, even in the capital's ritziest districts.

For much of Syria's independence, the Muslim Brotherhood catered to such religious sentiments, particularly among Sunnis, who make up the majority in Syria. (President Bashar Assad and his closest allies belong to the minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.) But in a bloody confrontation with the government in the late 1970s and early '80s, thousands of the Brotherhood's followers were killed or imprisoned, and its leadership was driven into exile.