The dust hadn’t even settled on the rubble of Damascus when the whispers started. Ahmed al-Sharaa, the newly appointed president of the transitional Syrian government, stood amidst the skeletal remains of the parliament building, his words echoing hollowly. “A new Syria,” he proclaimed, “built on the foundations of our faith!”
The swiftness of the Assad regime’s collapse had been startling. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), once a fringe group, now held the reins of power. Their fighters, hardened by years of conflict, patrolled the streets, their banners proclaiming the dawn of a new Islamic era. Sharaa spoke of unity, of national dialogue, but his appointments were overwhelmingly from the HTS ranks. The promised national conference kept being postponed, replaced by meetings with hand-picked loyalists.
The narrative was carefully crafted. The toppling of Assad, framed as a victory for Islam, was used to justify the new power structure. “God wills it!” was the refrain, silencing dissent. But beneath the surface, resentment simmered. The promise of absorbing all armed factions into a unified national army was a thinly veiled attempt to consolidate HTS’s dominance. Other rebel groups, particularly those within the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, eyed the move with suspicion. They remembered the HTS’s past, its Al-Qaeda lineage, and their own sacrifices in the fight against Assad.
Weapons, abandoned by the fleeing Syrian army, were now changing hands in the chaotic power vacuum. The fear wasn’t just about rival factions battling for control; it was about the rise of warlords, each carving out their territory under the guise of religious fervor. Plunder, masked as righteous redistribution, became rampant. Ancient artifacts vanished from museums, reappearing on the black market. Businesses owned by minorities were seized, their owners fleeing for their lives.
The people, weary of war and suffering, watched with growing unease. They had yearned for freedom from Assad’s tyranny, but this new reality felt like a different shade of the same darkness. The constant pronouncements of faith, used to justify every action, began to grate. “In the name of God,” they muttered, “our homes are taken, our livelihoods destroyed, and our voices silenced.”
A young woman named Layla, a teacher who had lost her family in the conflict, expressed the growing sentiment. “They use our faith as a weapon,” she said to a small gathering of displaced civilians. “They wrap their greed in religious pronouncements, thinking we are blind. But we are not. We see the truth. And when the time comes, we will not forget.” The people were starting to see through the facade. The very faith that had been invoked to rally them against Assad was now being used to justify their oppression. And Layla’s words echoed a growing truth: if Islam continued to be instrumentalized in this way, the backlash would be fierce, and the dream of a unified, peaceful Syria would vanish in a storm of renewed conflict. The seeds of a new rebellion were being sown, not against a dictator, but against the very people who claimed to be acting in God’s name.
All names of people and organizations appearing in this story are pseudonyms.
Rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa made transitional president of Syria
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