The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s Inflated Revival

According to Abu Hamed, the sectarian vocabulary in the discourse of the group’s cadres is nothing more than “realism on the part of the group and calling a spade a spade.” This is “unlike the discourse of the secularists that tears the unity of the nation with terms like national, leftist, liberal, and socialist, while making the inclusive Islamic identity secondary.”

However, Abu Hamed continued, “This dispute is ideological, and we should not dwell on it while the Syrian people are being slaughtered at the hands of the regime.”

The man did not hesitate to reveal that the goal of the “Muslim Brotherhood was simply to seize “power … For it is power that protects people from the evils of the misled and the vicissitudes of strangers.”

Regarding issues like the economy, he said that the group seeks to build an Islamic economy through Islamic banks and institutions, and by encouraging the private sector and attracting foreign investments. But Abu Hamed gives commerce a particular place in his vision for the Islamic economy, saying, “Commerce is a blessed profession, and merchants are the pillars of our group.”

At the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the younger generation in Damascus was surprised to find that major centers affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood were still present in the capital, and that many of its historic symbols were still inside Syria with the knowledge of the Syrian government.

Such Muslim Brotherhood centers include the Imam Hassan Habannaka Mosque in the district of Midan, named after one of the group’s most famous preachers in Damascus in the mid-1960s. Then there is the Sheikh Abdul-Karim al-Rifai Mosque near the Kfar Sousa roundabout, also named after a Brotherhood figure. To be sure, while this generation knows a lot about the war between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, it knows very little about the deals made between the two sides in the early 1980s.

In addition to the armed conflict between the government and the Combatant Vanguard – the military wing of the Brotherhood – in Hama and elsewhere, deals were concluded between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus that ensured the latter’s leaders – who consisted mainly of major merchants in the Syrian capital – and their supporters would remain neutral in battle.

Former Brotherhood member O. Taha, 53, told Al-Akhbar, “The Brotherhood in Damascus saw no other option but to accept the deal, which safeguarded their business interests in the country. The Brotherhood in Hama and Aleppo at the time accused us of failing to support them, but military victory against the Soviet-backed regime was impossible, while the West offered the group nothing but a place in exile.”

Regarding the group’s size and presence in Damascus, Taha said, “The group’s primary presence was in Midan and Kfar Sousa, which was part of the countryside at the time, in addition to Daria. The group was not strongly present in eastern Ghouta compared to the Nasserists and the Baathists.”

Today, things are quite different. All armed groups whose names begin with the word “liwaa,” meaning battalion, are affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, most notably Liwaa al-Islam, Liwaa al-Ridwan, and Liwaa Ahfad al-Rasoul. These groups are mainly present in the eastern Ghouta.

However, many observers dismiss this assessment, and say that the affiliation is based primarily on the source of funding. O. al-Jazi, 29, of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Qaboun, said, “If we go back to the beginnings of the armed action in the revolution, we would find that the name all rebels rallied around was the FSA. Back then, even the Brotherhood, which had small numbers of supporters, had to operate under the FSA. But controlling the process of financial support on the part of the coalition gave the Brotherhood its current weight. Most fighters belong to the group’s battalions only in name, but to the FSA in actuality.”

Brotherhood operatives who met with Al-Akhbar seemed to all have strict orders not to disclose information about the size of the political wing and where it is active. The answer we received from most everyone being: “The battalions represent the military wing, while the political wing works on supporting the revolution from outside Syria.” However, some attribute this obfuscation to the fact that the political arm is weak relative to its media footprint.

Abu Bakr Kseibati, a civilian opposition activist and aid worker, said, “The vagueness between the military and political wings of the group is deliberate, meant to claim thousands of rebels who were forced by circumstances to join Liwaa al-Islam and other groups, as members of the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a bid that the regime has helped with, as the regime’s media portrayed all opposition members as being Muslim Brotherhood operatives, turning them into a giant invincible specter, when I personally, during my visits to eastern Ghouta, only met a small number of cadres actually affiliated with the Brotherhood.”

Since the first protests erupted in Douma in the Damascus countryside, the Muslim Brotherhood squandered a lot of the popularity that they had accrued over 31 years. This reality can be easily seen in how people have changed their attitudes on the Islamist group throughout the stages of the Syrian crisis.

At the beginning of the crisis, the Brotherhood received a lot of sympathy in the ranks of the popular opposition in the Damascus countryside. This was evident from the slogans in some of the protests, which denounced political detentions and exile.

Kseibati said, “It was sympathy of the kind that could be with any prisoner of conscience, especially as the regime forced us to curse the Brotherhood each morning in school.” However, the Islamist group understood it otherwise, “and assumed that people in the protests were automatic supporters, and that it alone was eligible to guide the masses to the right path, and thus exercised a mentality of power before taking power.”

According to observers, the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities on the ground do not take place through political organizations, which are almost non-existent, but through their military battalions, which seem to receive their guidance from leaders based abroad. As a result, its conduct has become a cause for resentment among the population in the eastern Ghouta, to the extent that there have been protests denouncing the “battalions’ rule.”

This is another problematic issue given the compound role the Brotherhood has played in Syria, past and present. Sources close to the group do not deny that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has received financial support from London, where most of the group’s leaders are based, and from Saudi Arabia. However, the group’s cadres adamantly claim that the bulk of their funding comes from its own supporters, boasting that “Damascus’ merchants have never failed to support the revolution on the ground.”

By digging deeper into the nature of the funding, it may be possible to distinguish between two basic types of support: The first is military and logistical in nature, and therefore is essentially international support (from the West and the Gulf); and second, there is what may be termed political money, which is a key part of the group’s traditions, and which comes mainly from merchants in Damascus.

Despite the astronomical costs of the second type of support, it seems that the Muslim Brotherhood can cover them with ease. The reason, according to observers, is that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood sits on considerable financial assets in Syria and beyond.

There is a special relationship between Saudi Arabia and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which is almost independent from and unaffected by the “cold war” between the conservative kingdom and the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, especially the group’s leadership in Egypt.

True, Saudi Arabia fears the “Muslim Brotherhood state” model, the rival model that the United States has proposed as an alternative to the aging Arab regimes. However, Saudi Arabia has no choice but to do business with the Brotherhood in Syria. The reason, according to observers, is that the kingdom cannot attract the Muslim street in multicultural Syria except through the Brotherhood.

But the opposite is equally true, if not more so. One source familiar with the inner workings of the group told Al-Akhbar, “The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria needs Saudi Arabia more, because it has all but lost its historic influence since the events in Hama. It tends to rely more on external intervention than relying on its own strengths. In addition, a large part of the group’s investments is based in the Gulf.”

He also pointed out that famous Muslim Brotherhood figures, such as Zahran Alloush, commander of Liwaa al-Islam, are linked to the House of Saud more than to any other entity, including the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood itself. The source said, “[Alloush] studied Sharia in Saudi Arabia. His father was a Muslim Brotherhood cleric with direct ties to the ruling family, but more importantly, [Alloush] still travels to and from Saudi in secret, even during the war.”