Zaid bin Thabit narrated that, we were with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ collecting the Qur’an on pieces of cloth, so the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: طُوبَى لِلشَّأْمِ “Blessed is Ash-Sham!”[1] So we said: فَقُلْنَا لأَىٍّ ذَلِكَ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ “Why is that O Messenger of Allah?” He said: لأَنَّ مَلاَئِكَةَ الرَّحْمَنِ بَاسِطَةٌ أَجْنِحَتَهَا عَلَيْهَا “Because the angels of Ar-Rahman spread their wings over it.”[2]
There is no doubt that the victory of the Syrian revolution took everyone by surprise, even the rebels themselves. As one shocked commentator wrote, “The war in Syria was supposed to be over.”[3] What started off as a limited campaign turned in to a lightening offensive which encompassed the entire country, and ended decades of torture, oppression and tyranny by the Assad regime. Despite all their overt and covert military and political support to Assad, the powers Russia, America, Israel and Iran couldn’t prevent the plan of Allah.
وَيَمْكُرُونَ وَيَمْكُرُ ٱللَّهُ ۖ وَٱللَّهُ خَيْرُ ٱلْمَـٰكِرِينَ
“They planned, but Allah also planned. And Allah is the best of planners.”[4]
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said,
وَاعْلَمْ أَنَّ الْأُمَّةَ لَوْ اجْتَمَعَتْ عَلَى أَنْ يَنْفَعُوكَ بِشَيْءٍ لَمْ يَنْفَعُوكَ إِلَّا بِشَيْءٍ قَدْ كَتَبَهُ اللَّهُ لَكَ وَلَوْ اجْتَمَعُوا عَلَى أَنْ يَضُرُّوكَ بِشَيْءٍ لَمْ يَضُرُّوكَ إِلَّا بِشَيْءٍ قَدْ كَتَبَهُ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكَ رُفِعَتْ الْأَقْلَامُ وَجَفَّتْ الصُّحُفُ
“Know that if the nations gathered together to benefit you, they could not benefit you unless Allah has decreed it for you. And if the nations gathered together to harm you, they could not harm you unless Allah has decreed it for you. The pens have been lifted and the pages have dried.”[5]
After the victory, the usual suspects in the west began a fear-mongering campaign on the prospect of an Islamic government ruling over the Syrian people. The Washington Post headline read ‘Christians in Aleppo fear for their future after Islamist takeover’[6]. US President Biden said, “it’s now incumbent upon all the opposition groups who seek a role in governing Syria to demonstrate their commitment to the rights of all Syrians, the rule of law, and the protection of religious and ethnic minorities,”[7] even though he has actively supported the genocide of religious and ethnic minorities next door in occupied Palestine.
Syria was under Islamic rule from 634 until 1918CE. The campaign to liberate Syria from the Byzantines was begun by the first Caliph of Islam – Abu Bakr As-Siddiq and then completed during the caliphate of Umar ibn al-Khattab at the hands of the generals Abu Ubaidah ibn Al-Jarrah and Khalid ibn al-Walid, may Allah be pleased with them all.
The Umayyad Caliphate made Damascus its capital and seat of government. Under the Abbasid Caliphate, Ash-Sham was a province of the Seljuk Sultanate, which played a pivotal role in defeating the Crusaders who had occupied Palestine.
The question is, if Islamic rule is so intolerant of minorities, how is it Christians and churches still exist in Syria after nearly 1300 years of Islamic rule?
Thomas Arnold, an orientalist and a Christian answers this question: “But of any organised attempt to force the acceptance of Islam on the non-Muslim population, or of any systematic persecution intended to stamp out the Christian religion, we hear nothing.
Had the Caliphs chosen to adopt either course of action, they might have swept away Christianity as easily as Ferdinand and Isabella drove Islam out of Spain, or Louis XIV made Protestantism penal in France, or the Jews were kept out of England for 350 years.
The Eastern Churches in Asia were entirely cut off from communion with the rest of Christendom, throughout which no one would have been found to lift a finger on their behalf, as heretical communions. So that the very survival of these churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally tolerant attitude of the Muhammadan governments towards them.”[8]
The only reason Christians and Churches still exist in not just Syria but the entire Middle East is due to Islamic rule – the Caliphate – which protected Christians for over a millennia. However, since the Caliphate’s abolition in 1924 and the rise of nationalistic, secular, non-Islamic states all peoples both Muslim and non-Muslim are suffering.
Rashid Rida narrates an example from 1876 when the Ottoman Caliphate adopted a new constitution based upon the Tanzimat reforms, which included a change in the status of the non-Muslim Ottoman citizens.
“A Greek doctor said to a group of Syrians who were showing their joy and happiness with the Ottoman Constitution after its announcement: the rule of the shari‘ah is better for us Christians than the rule of the Constitution, which takes from us much of the privileges that the shari‘ah grants us, and subjects us to obligations from which the shari‘ah exempts us. His sentiment was supported by the intensification of enmity between the Turks and the Greeks, Armenians, and others following the Constitution, which was followed by these people being wrested of much of what they had had since the time when rule was solely that of the revealed law.”[8.5]
At the Syrian National Congress convened in May 1919 in Damascus, after the Ottomans were expelled from Syria, the idea of a secular government was proposed. Rashid Rida who was a participant at the Congress commented on this, “I do not remember any of the Christian participants agreeing to that suggestion. Rather, some declared their opposition to it, as did most of the Muslims.” [9]
A caliphate is not a utopia. It is a state run by human beings for human beings. But as long as sovereignty in this state is to the sharia and not a tyrannical dictator, and the authority derives its legitimacy from the people, then an Islamic government is not something to be feared. In fact, it is something that should be welcomed as the Christians of Homs said to the Muslim army led by Abu Ubaidah, “Your rule and justice are dearer to us than the oppression that we used to suffer.”[10]
Notes
[1] The land of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria
[2] Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 3954, https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3954
[3] https://www.vox.com/world-politics/389694/syria-rebels-bashar-assad-iran-hts-united-states-refugees-middle-east
[4] Holy Qur’an, Surah Al-Anfal, ayah 30
[5] Sunan al-Tirmidhī 2516, https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:2516
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/12/06/aleppo-christians-syria-rebel-offensive-assad/
[7] Sunday 8 December 2024, https://sv.usembassy.gov/remarks-by-president-biden-on-syria/
[8] Thomas W. Arnold, ‘The Preaching of Islam,’ Second Edition, Kitab Bhavan Publishers, New Delhi, p.72
[8.5] Muhammad Rashid Rida, ‘The Caliphate or Supreme Imamate,’ first published 1922-1923, translation of Al-Khilafa aw al-Imama al-‘Uzma, translated by Simon A Wood, Yale University Press, 2024, p.175; original Arabic https://shamela.ws/book/9682
[9] Ibid, p.174
[10] Dr Ali Muhammad as-Sallabi, ‘Umar ibn Al-Khattab his life and times,’ vol.2, p.306
Islamic Civilization 