The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria () is the Syrian branch of the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organization. Its objective is the transformation of Syria into an Islamic state governed by Sharia law through a gradual legal and political process. The Muslim Brotherhood played a major role in dissent against the secular Ba'ath Party during the period 1976–1982, and membership in the Brotherhood in Syria became a capital offence in 1980. the Brotherhood was effectively broken as an active political force inside Syria.

The Muslim Brotherhood in exile was among the 250 signatories of the Damascus Declaration of 2005, a statement of unity by Syrian opposition including the Arab nationalist National Democratic Rally, the Kurdish Democratic Alliance, the Committees of Civil Society, the Kurdish Democratic Front, and the Movement of the Future, and calling for "peaceful, gradual," reform "founded on accord, and based on dialogue and recognition of the other".

The Muslim Brotherhood was considered the main opposition group in Syria to the government on the eve of the 2011 uprising, but failed to make a significant mark on the protests against the government. The Syrian uprising's core population of protesters came from a younger generation which had come of age in a Syria without significant Muslim Brotherhood presence. However, among the expatriated opposition, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has come to be seen by some as the "dominant group" in the opposition during the Syrian civil war as of spring 2012. By the mid-2010s, the MB's role had become more peripheral, overshadowed by other Islamist and secular groups within the fragmented Syrian opposition. Nevertheless, it remained one of the more organized political entities in exile, continuing to participate in opposition activities and dialogues concerning Syria's future.

History

thumb|upright=1.2| Shaykh Muhammad al-Hamid (1328 AH / 1910 C.E - 1389 AH / 1969 C.E), an [[ulema|Islamic scholar from Hama and major early leader of Syrian Muslim Brotherhood]]

Once the second most important branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Syrian Ikhwan had two wings – the relatively moderate Damascus wing and the militant Aleppo wing. Becoming more revolutionary and radical in the 1960s and 1970s, they aimed to overthrow the Ba'athist government that controlled Syria. In Egypt, splinter groups inspired by Sayyid Qutb were growing more violent and militant than the mainline Brotherhood. In Syria, the entire organization was affected, as the internally divided leadership failed to contain the radicalization to the splinter groups. Even though the leadership publicly disavowed the radical elements, they were unable to contain the radicalization of the group because were mostly in exile due to the brutality and violent repression of the Syrian government.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria was founded in the mid-1940s by Mustafa al-Siba'i and Muhammad al-Mubarak al-Tayyib, who were friends and colleagues of the founder of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna. In the first years of Syrian independence the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was part of the legal opposition, and in the 1961 parliamentary elections it won ten seats. After the 1963 coup brought the secularist, pan-Arabist Ba'ath Party to power, it was banned. The Brotherhood states its founder was Dr. Mustafa al-Siba'i. By 1954, the Syrian association led by Mustafa al-Siba'i offered assistance to its Egyptian sister organisation, which Gamal 'Abd al-Nasser was then subjecting to severe repression.

However, it was not until the 1960s that the Syrian Brotherhood came to play a major role in politics, as part of a broad-based resistance movement, which developed into armed struggle, against the secular government. After the secular Ba'athist military coup of 8 March 1963, the new administration drastically restricted political freedoms, and concentrated power in the hands of the military and awarded prominent positions to the country's Alawite minority. Sunni Syrian Islamists – from the majority faith – did not have representation in the government. From the start, Islamic political groups, of which the Brotherhood was the most prominent, represented the strongest opposition to the government. The outlawing of Brotherhood in 1964 resulted in its radicalisation. In 1964 and 1965, strikes and mass demonstrations spread throughout Syria's major cities, especially in Hama, and were crushed by the military. In 1971, General Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, seized power; in 1973 violent demonstrations broke out again in response to a proposed constitution that did not require the president to be a Muslim. Syria's intervention in the Lebanese civil war in 1976 on the side of the Maronites sparked renewed agitation in Syria, and assassinations began to target members of the Syrian government and prominent Alawites; the Muslim Brotherhood later claimed responsibility for most of these.

1976–82 Islamist insurgency

On 16 June 1979, the Muslim Brotherhood carried out an attack on cadets at the Aleppo Artillery School, officially killing 83.

Around this time, professor Yusef al-Yusef was assassinated in Aleppo. The Syrian government responded by sentencing to death about 15 prisoners, already accused of being Iraqi agents, for belonging to the Islamic resistance movement. Terrorist attacks then became a daily occurrence, particularly in Aleppo and other northern cities. The government tended to ascribe these attacks to the Brotherhood, but as the armed resistance gained widespread popular support and more loosely defined armed groups appeared, especially in poor neighborhoods, it became difficult to determine the extent of the Brotherhood's involvement.

In November 1979, a Brotherhood leaflet stated:

<blockquote>We reject all forms of despotism, out of respect for the very principles of Islam, and we don't demand the fall of Pharaoh so that another one can take his place. Religion is not imposed by force....</blockquote>

In the days leading to 8 March 1980 (the seventeenth anniversary of the Ba'thist coup), nearly all Syrian cities were paralysed by strikes and protests, which developed into pitched battles with security forces. Many organisations, both religious and secular, were involved, including the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The government responded with overwhelming military force, sending in tens of thousands of troops, supported by tanks and helicopters. In and around Aleppo, hundreds of demonstrators were killed, and eight thousand were arrested. By April, the uprising had been crushed.

A newspaper article by the president's brother, Rifaat al-Assad, stated that the government was prepared to "sacrifice a million martyrs" (over a tenth of Syria's population at that time) in order to stamp out "the nation's enemies". On 7 July 1980, the government passed a law making membership in the Brotherhood punishable by death. Typically, however, the administration practiced indiscriminate, collective punishment: in August, the army executed 80 residents of a block of flats in response to an attack on soldiers stationed in Aleppo. In April 1981, the army executed about 400 of Hama's inhabitants, chosen among male loyalists over the age of 14. This was as a retribution after a failed terrorist attack on an Alawite village near Hama.

thumb|Photograph showing destruction in the al-Kilani district of Hama following the massacre.

During a 50-day moratorium on the application of the 7 July law, over a thousand Muslim Brothers surrendered to the authorities, hoping to escape the death penalty; information published about them in the official press may give some insight into the composition of the Brotherhood's membership at that time. Most of those who gave themselves up were students under twenty-five years of age, from Damascus and other large cities; others were schoolteachers, professors or engineers.

In August, September and November 1981, the Brotherhood carried out three car-bomb attacks against government and military targets in Damascus, killing hundreds of people, according to the official press. On 2 February 1982, the Brotherhood led a major insurrection in Hama, rapidly taking control of the city; the military responded by bombing Hama (whose population was about 250,000) throughout the rest of the month, killing between 10,000 and 30,000 people. The tragedy of the Hama Massacre marked the defeat of the Brotherhood, and the militant Islamic movement in general, as a political force in Syria.

Post-Hama era

Having suppressed all opposition, Hafez al-Assad released some imprisoned members of the Brotherhood in the mid-1990s. After his death in 2000, Assad was succeeded by his son, Bashar al-Assad, who initially signalled greater openness to political debate. In May 2001, encouraged by a new political climate, the Muslim Brotherhood published a statement in London rejecting political violence, and calling for a modern, democratic state. Many political prisoners, including Muslim Brothers, were pardoned and released. However, this reform was short-lived; in the same year, the few political freedoms that had been granted were abruptly revoked.

Although its leadership is in exile, the Brotherhood continues to enjoy considerable sympathy among Syrians. Riyad al-Turk, a secular opposition leader, considers it "the most credible" Syrian opposition group. The Brotherhood has continued to advocate a democratic political system; it has abandoned its calls for violent resistance and for the application of shari'a law, as well as for Sunni uprisings against Alawites. Al-Turk and others in the secular opposition are inclined to take this evolution seriously, as a sign of the Brotherhood's greater political maturity, and believe that the Brotherhood would now be willing to participate in a democratic system of government.

In a January 2006 interview, the Brotherhood's leader, Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni, "said the Muslim Brotherhood wants a peaceful change of government in Damascus and the establishment of a 'civil, democratic state', not an Islamic republic." According to Bayanouni, the Syrian government admits having detained 30,000 people, giving a fair representation of the Brotherhood's strength.

According to leaked American cables, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad allegedly called Hamas an "uninvited guest" and said "If you want me to be effective and active, I have to have a relationship with all parties. Hamas is Muslim Brotherhood, but we have to deal with the reality of their presence", comparing Hamas to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood which was crushed by his father Hafez al-Assad. He then allegedly claimed Hamas would disappear if peace was brought to the Middle East.

Syrian civil war (2011–2024)

Unlike the MB-led insurgency of 1976–1982, the civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War which started in March 2011 began as a secular and nonviolent youth-led movement. Protesters, mostly formerly apolitical Syrians in their twenties and thirties, came together on a local, grassroots basis and had affiliations to older political ideologies, calling instead for the release of prisoners of conscience, guarantees of democratic freedoms, and the fall of the Assad government. In August 2011, expatriated Syrian oppositionists formed the Syrian National Council to seek international support for the uprising. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood officially held five seats in the Syrian National Council, the main opposition umbrella outside Syria, but created a network of alliances with other SNC members, and created a controlling influence on the council's relief committee. Since the formation of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces in November 2012, the Syrian National Council has taken a backseat to the Coalition, which is recognized as the external political body of oppositionists "leading" the revolution.

In 2012, Brotherhood activists created the Commission for Civilian Protection (CCP). Its website lists numerous affiliated factions, distributed across Homs, Damascus, Idlib, and elsewhere; however, most of these groups are small and generally self-identify as members of the Free Syrian Army or the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is believed to control, through funding, one-fourth to one-third of the disparate armed rebel brigades known collectively as the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Durou al-Thawra Commission (Shields of the Revolution Council) created in 2012 with assistance from the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood allegedly consisting of some 43 fighting units most of them in Idlib or Hama.

At the same time Brotherhood leaders have been reaching out to reassure leaders in neighboring Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon – as well as the West – that they "have no intention of dominating a future Syrian political system"

The Syrian Brotherhood harshly condemned Iranian political intervention in Bahrain. This condemnation was formulated "politely," without any obvious insulting references to Shi'a. However, the effort failed. They reiterated the Russian Orthodox Church's call of the operation as a Holy War.

On December 5, 2024, the Muslim Brotherhood celebrated the liberation of Aleppo and Idlib as "clear triumphs" granted "by the grace and mercy of God," and were celebrated as turning points in reclaiming Syrian sovereignty. In the same statement, the Brotherhood urged discipline, unity, and solidarity among Syrians.

In December 2024, the Assad regime collapsed following a swift two-week insurgency led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The fall of Assad's regime left Syria grappling with the monumental task of rebuilding from over half a century of dictatorship and civil war. Citizens began cautiously expressing hope amidst the fragility of post-conflict life, even as cycles of vengeance and sectarian violence threatened stability. The pervasive legacy of Assad's informant state left Syria fractured by betrayals, as communities grappled with the trauma of neighbors and families turning against one another. The new government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, called for national reconciliation and established voluntary demobilization centers, but tensions remained unresolved.

Personalities

  • Mohammad Walid – current Brotherhood leader
  • Mohammad Farouk Tayfour – deputy leader, vice president of the Syrian National Council