Islamic Revivalism in Syria: The Rise and Fall of Ba'thist Secularism

Contemporary studies on Syria assume that the country’s Ba’thist regime has been effective in subduing its Islamic opposition, placing Syria at odds with the Middle East’s larger trends of rising Islamic activism and the eclipse of secular ideologies as the primary source of political activism. Yet this assumption founders when confronted with the clear resurgence in Islamic militantism in the country since 2004.

This book examines Syria’s current political reality as regards its Islamic movement, describing the country’s present day Islamic groups – particularly their social profile and ideology – and offering an explanation of their resurgence. The analysis focuses on:

• Who are today’s Syrian Islamic groups?
• Why and how are they re-emerging after 22 years of relative silence as an important socio-economic and political force?
• How is the Syrian state dealing with their re-emergence in light of Syria’s secularism and ideologically diverse society?

Bridging area studies, Islamic studies, and political science, this book will be an important reference for those working within the fields of Comparative Politics, Political Economy, and Middle Eastern Studies.

Line Khatib is a senior research fellow at the ICAMES (Inter-University Consortium of Arab and Middle Eastern Studies), McGill University, and a visiting scholar at the Dubai School of Government. Her research interests lie within the fields of Comparative Politics, Political Economy, Political Islam, and Secularism, with a particular focus on Islamic groups as both social and political movements.