My Salafi Friend And The Revolution

There’s been no news of Fida for days now – nothing written up on the walls, no one has seen him at a demonstration, and there hasn’t been any news of him being arrested, either.

Fida is a Salafi, a follower of the Muslim school of thought that seeks to emulate the “predecessors”, the companions and followers of the Prophet Muhammad.

He joined the Syrian revolution a year ago, when he was in his fourth year studying economics at university in Damascus, and also teaching “fiqh” or Islamic jurisprudence at a mosque.

One day, as Fida was on his way home from university, he saw members of the security forces hitting protesters with rifle butts and shoving them onto a bus.

Infuriated by what he saw this, he turned to a mutual friend who was there at the time and said, “Do you want to be a martyr?”

“Yes,” his friend replied without hesitation.

Fida charged towards the bus, picked up a rifle that was lying there and pointed it at the soldiers.

“I am seeking martyrdom,” he yelled at them, forcing them to let the protesters get off the bus.

Directing the soldiers into the bus, he said,“ Go away – we won’t shoot you.” He got his friend to close the door behind them, fired a few shots into the air, and fled.

The regime has often accused the protesters of being Salafis as a way of discrediting them. Its aims are twofold – it wants to convince the domestic public that its opponents are part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which it accuses of committing crimes in the 1980s, and secondly, to worry the international community by raising the spectre of al-Qaeda.

Salafism has a long history in Syria, with scholars such as Jamaleddin al-Qassemi, Muhammad Nasser al-Albani and Abdel Qader Arnaout spanning the last 150 years.

Several contemporary Salafist clerics have distanced themselves from the Muslim Brotherhood, and some have participated in opposition meetings both inside Syria and abroad.

These clerics include Sheikh Muhammad Eid al-Abbasi, a pupil of al-Albani and a member of the National Salvation Congress headed by Haitham al-Maleh.

Speaking about the Muslim Brotherhood’s actions in the 1980s, Abbasi has said, “I protested against what they did. Good intentions are not enough – one must also pursue a rational, religiously lawful process. This is something Sheikh al-Albani and I agreed on.”

After Sheikh Muhammad Said al-Buti, a pro-regime, high-profile cleric, wrote a book accusing the Salafists of fanaticism, Abbasi responded with “The Heresy of Sectarian Fanaticism” and “The Epistles of the Salafist Dawa”.

Abbasi has previously been imprisoned for his religious and intellectual views in the al-Mazzeh military jail.

On the current revolution in Syria, Abbasi says, “Unlike al-Qaeda, the Syrian people’s revolution is calling for rights, freedom, dignity and justice to be realised. The aim of this revolution is not to establish an Islamic state, but to give people freedom.”

One branch of Salafism maintains that it is necessary to obey one’s rulers under any circumstances, but the rest believe that defending one’s sacred values, honour and property is a form of jihad, a duty imposed on every Muslim.

That is what Fida has done. He has spent the 300,000 Syrian pounds (around 4,700 US dollars) he had saved for his wedding on the revolution. He distributed 100,000 pounds to the needy families of detainees, and another 100,000 on spray cans, cloth to make banners, independence flags, loudspeakers and a colour printer to make flyers.

With the remaining 100,000 he bought a grave and a burial shroud for himself.

Now I look at the streets where, in between demonstrations, I used to see Fida spraying “Peace, Justice and Freedom” on the walls or handing out fliers.

Almost no one knows Fida, even though he has been arrested three times.

A committed secularist, I for one hope to see this hero safe again.