Jawdat Said, a non-violent Syrian Islamic thinker and author who opposed the fanaticism of some of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideologues, died in exile in Istanbul on Sunday. He was 90.
His death leaves a centrist gap in a fragmented Syria, with the country divided between the Alawite-dominated regime, Marxist-Leninist Kurdish militias in the north-east and Al Qaeda-linked groups in the north-west.
Said died from coronavirus, Syrian opposition figure Ahmed Tumeh, a disciple of Said, said by phone from Istanbul.
Mr Tumeh said that as soon as the Syrian revolt against five decades of Assad family rule broke out in March 2011, Said called on the protest movement to remain peaceful, regardless of the brutality of the response many expected from the regime.
“Be forewarned, he told us from day one, do not take up arms,” Mr Tumeh said.
The revolt was militarised by the end of 2011. The regime's response to the mostly Sunni protest movement had intensified by then, and Sunni soldiers began to defect from the military, forming the western and Arab-backed Free Syrian Army.
But militant groups, particularly the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, eventually dominated the armed opposition to the regime, providing a rationale for the Russian intervention on the side of the regime in late 2015.
“Sheikh Jawdat recognised early on in his life on the need to set weapons aside in favour of the power of ideas, and critically think about our ideological heritage,” Mr Tumeh said.
“He was convinced that democracy is the best of what humanity has produced, and that it does not contradict with Islam,” he said.
Said was fond of telling the biblical story of the brothers Cain and Abel and how Cain declined to use violence against Abel although Abel was bent on killing him.
Short and of slight build, the Egyptian-educated Said rose to prominence in the 1960s as one of the most vocal Islamic scholars who challenged Sayyed Qutb, a radical preacher who advocated an Islamic state by violent means if necessary.
Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser executed Qutb in 1966 and he remains a revered figure for many in the Brotherhood.
Said graduated from the ancient Islamic University of Azhar in the late 1950s and returned to Syria shortly afterwards, as political turmoil shook the country.
By 1963, mostly Alawite officers had seized power. In 1970, Hafez Al Assad wrested control from a fellow Alawite officer, ushering in his family's rule over the country.
In 1982, regime forces killed thousands of people in the central city of Hama, in a crackdown on a revolt led by an armed group within the Brotherhood.
In 2003, the regime jailed a dozen of his pupils in the neglected Damascus suburb of Daraya, after Said organised them to set up a public library and begin cleaning the streets.
After the 2011 revolt, followers of Said established a form of self-rule in Daraya, which was developed in other areas that fell out of the control of the regime across the country.
Independent judges presided over the courts and a civilian administration ran the suburb.
"If the Syrian revolt succeeds through arms we will be ruled by the same [violent system] we have had since Muawiya 1,400 years ago," Said said at the outset of the revolt.
He was referring to the first Muslim caliph, Muawiya Ibn Abi Sufyan, who ruled by the sword and died from illness in Damascus in 680 AD.
"Democracy does not come into a country unless all the factions agree not to carry arms and resort to the ballot box. This is common sense."
But even some of Said's most loyal followers took up arms, becoming the core of the rebel force that controlled Daraya until it surrendered to the regime in a Russian supervised deal in 2016.
The National
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