DUBAI (Reuters) – Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose fighters led the offensive that toppled the Assad family dynasty in December, has said he will build an inclusive society in a country with a delicate sectarian and religious mix.
His pledge is being tested by a campaign of killings against Syria’s Alawites – the minority sect to which ousted leader Bashar al-Assad belongs – that was triggered by an attack on new government forces by Assad loyalists.
Some Syrians and foreign powers have worried that Sharaa may impose strict Islamic governance or exclude some communities from positions of power in a country with numerous minority groups such as Druze, Kurds, Christians and Alawites.
Syria kept a central role for Islamic law in a constitutional declaration issued on March 13.
Here is a look at sects and minorities in Syria, which has been destroyed by years of civil war following a 2011 uprising spearheaded by Syria’s majority Sunni Muslims against the Alawite leadership.
* ALAWITES
– The small Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, which reveres Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. Alawites are centred in Syria though there are also communities elsewhere in the Middle East.
– Most Alawites in Syria are poor farmers, coming from the western mountainous region on the Mediterranean.
– The late Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, became the most powerful Alawite when he seized control of the country in a 1970 coup after rising within the ostensibly secular Baath Party.
– The ruling Assads recruited heavily from the Alawite community for state, security and intelligence posts but many Alawites say they continued to suffer – like other Syrians – from poverty and repression under the rule of father and son.
– Throughout their history, the Alawites have been persecuted. They were conquered by waves of Crusaders, Mamluks, and Ottomans in addition to fighting internecine wars.
* SUNNIS
– Sunni Muslims are the majority throughout the Islamic world, except in a handful of countries. Nearly all Arab states are ruled by Sunnis, and their leaders have long been suspicious of Assad’s friendship with non-Arab, Shi’ite Muslim Iran.
– The elder Assad had crushed Sunni militants, killing at least 10,000 in the city of Hama in 1982 in the bloodiest single incident in modern Arab history.
– The elder Assad nevertheless fostered ties with the Sunni merchant classes of Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s commercial hub, and brought Sunnis into government positions. Some Sunnis say the younger Assad alienated the merchants by favouring the business interests of his Alawite kin.
– In March 2011, demonstrations against Assad’s rule swept across Syria, demanding greater freedoms and end to corruption. After the government cracked down, the revolt spiralled into a civil war, pitting rebels mostly from the Sunni majority against Assad’s forces backed by Shi’ite militias from across the Middle East.
– Some Sunni extremists have a hatred for minorities, whom they regard as infidels, as well as for Shi’ite Iran, which backed Assad.
– Assad’s government blamed Sunni Arab rulers for fostering the revolt and says enemy fighters include sectarian extremists.
* CHRISTIANS
– Many members of Syria’s Christian communities stuck by Assad but said they did so out of fear that Sunni Islamists would trample on minority rights if they took power.
– Other prominent Christian figures joined Syria’s opposition.
– The Christians are split into a number of denominations – some of them tiny communities with ancient roots in pre-Islamic Syria. Groups include the Greek Orthodox, Maronites, Syriac Orthodox and Catholics, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Armenian Orthodox and Catholics. There also are a few Protestants.
DRUZE
– The Druze, an Arab minority who practise a religion originally derived from Islam, live in Lebanon, Syria, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, holding a distinctive position in the region’s mosaic of faiths and cultures.
– In Syria, they are mostly based in the southern province of Sweida, although other communities live around Damascus and in northern Syria.
– The Druze have a close-knit identity and distinctive monotheistic faith that emerged in the 11th century and incorporates elements from Islam and other philosophies, emphasizing monotheism, reincarnation and the pursuit of truth.
– They maintain a degree of secrecy around their religious practice.
– Israel has a small Druze community and some Druze also live in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day war.
– Israel has pledged to intervene militarily in Syria if the Druze there face any threats.
(Compiled by Michael Georgy and Tala Ramadan; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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