Inside and Outside Syria, a Debate to Decide the Future

In the 1970s, the struggle brought the group into conflict with Hafez Assad, a military leader from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The Brotherhood and splinter groups assassinated Baathists and Alawite officers and launched attacks in Damascus and elsewhere. The government responded with brute force, leading to what some describe as a civil war, culminating in the crushing of an uprising in 1982 in Hama where estimates of the dead range from 10,000 to 30,000. The movement's leadership was killed, jailed or exiled, its organization inside Syria dismantled.

"The organization made a mistake by being dragged into this battle with the regime," Bayanouni said.

Since then, Bayanouni has been engaged in a process of trying to lay the groundwork for the Brotherhood's return to Syrian politics. His effort is still shadowed by fears that the fall of Assad's government would inaugurate conservative Islamic rule, reversing decades of state-sponsored secularism. The effort, over the objections of some in his group, also marks one of the most decisive shifts in Syrian opposition politics in recent years.

"The organization is not going to be an alternative to this regime," he said. "The alternative will be a broad-based national government to which the Muslim Brotherhood will contribute, as does any other political force."

Among the various Syrian political factions -- Islamic activists, Arab nationalists, Syrian nationalists, communists and other leftists -- nearly every party has abandoned the revolutionary, generation-old notion that it alone can serve as the agent of change. The Baath Party has not; the constitution still declares it "the leading party of both the society and the state." In Bayanouni's words, and in a spate of declarations, the Brotherhood has forsworn that role, mirroring reforms of the group in other countries including Egypt and Jordan.

In 2002, Bayanouni published a national charter that called for a democratic state and rejected violence. In 2004, the Brotherhood disavowed the idea that "we consider ourselves to be the movement that represents all Muslims." In the same document, it endorsed women's rights and said it would seek only the gradual introduction of Islamic law, leaving the actual legislation to elected representatives. (Requiring women to wear the veil, segregating education or banning alcohol "are not a priority at this point," Bayanouni said in the interview.) A year later, in a National Call for Salvation, the Brotherhood disavowed revenge for past crimes and called for political parties and free elections.

Last month, it joined secular and minority opposition groups in endorsing what was called the Damascus Declaration, a four-page manifesto hailed by a still-feeble Syrian opposition as a blueprint for an alternative to Assad's government and a first for cooperation between secular and religious activists.

"The Muslim Brotherhood," Bayanouni said, "is ready to accept others and to deal with them. We believe that Syria is for all its people, regardless of sect, ethnicity or religion. No one has the right to exclude anyone else."

While the moves have won Bayanouni respect among Syria's opposition, fears still run deep that a chasm remains between the Brotherhood's promises and intentions. Anxiety is particularly strong among Syria's minorities -- Christians and Shiite Muslim offshoots such as the Ismailis, Alawites and Druze. To many, the Brotherhood remains an instrument for domination by Syria's Sunni majority. The same fears originally gave rise in part to the Baath Party's Arab nationalism, which was offered as a more encompassing identity than narrow religious sectarianism.

And in Bayanouni's home, his words can still carry an edge. He says the Brotherhood is only one of many Islamic groups, and he claims the government exaggerates his organization's power to frighten secularists and minorities. But in the same moment, he insists the Brotherhood is the only group representing the Sunni majority and the one with the most support. "Everyone recognizes this," he said.

A Militant Undercurrent

In Damascus, Mohammed Habash, a member of parliament and representative of what he calls the liberal trend in political Islam, speaks with a calm that belies the iconoclasm of his words. His ideas are unusual for a Muslim scholar: Islam is not the only path to salvation, he insists, and the prophet Mohammad made mistakes. Reinterpretation is mandatory, he said. The veil, for instance, is not an obligation.

Habash's worry is not the secularism that has dominated Syrian life, but the example of neighboring Iraq, where a more militant brand of Islam filled the void after the collapse of 35 years of authoritarian rule. "I believe we're headed for black days. Let's be honest. You can't put sugar on death," he said, quoting a proverb.