3/19/2025 Syria (International Christian Concern) — After a brief drafting process that lasted less than two weeks, Syria has announced an interim constitution to guide the country for the next five years.
The document is intended to act as a framework while the government prepares for regular elections in 2030 and follows a national dialogue last month that gathered representatives from around the country to discuss the path forward.
Analysis of the constitutional declaration suggests that earlier verbal rhetoric about respecting the rights of women and religious minorities has remained an important pillar of the new government. Still, the document concentrates power in the presidency and is explicit in its deference to Islamic law.
“The religion of the President of the Republic is Islam,” Article III declares, and “Islamic jurisprudence is the principal source of legislation.” This language is slightly starker than Syria’s previous constitution, which cited Islamic law as simply one source among others.
Still, the constitution also declares protection for “all divine religions” and guarantees the right of the people to engage in religious practice so long as those practices do not disturb the public order. While the practical impact of this provision, caveated as it is, has yet to be discovered, it seems to indicate that the government intends to tolerate Christians and other religious minorities.
In addition to provisions protecting religious freedom, other articles protect a variety of human rights, including the right of women to obtain an education and work.
The constitutional announcement comes as Syria experiences widespread violence, concentrated in Alawite-majority areas in the country’s western regions. The violence has presented a serious challenge to government attempts to unify the country and suggests that longstanding community tensions will not fade quickly.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s new president, has made many statements extolling the virtues of religious tolerance and has engaged in concrete steps to ensure their safety, he is still an avowed proponent of the Salafi-jihadist ideology and has much deeper roots as a persecutor of religion than a promoter of its free practice.
“Diversity is our strength, not a weakness,” al-Sharaa declared in an edict upon capturing Aleppo en route to Damascus. Still, HTS-aligned fighters reportedly went door to door in Damascus asking residents to identify their faith, suggesting that religion may continue to act as a point of tension.
Part of the inconsistent messaging may lie in the fact that al-Sharaa and HTS have always been primarily focused on opposing the Assad regime, rather than clearly establishing its own positive vision for the country.
As the international community watches to see what type of government will replace the Assad regime, hundreds of thousands of religious minorities in Syria are watching too. For them, the new government’s respect for religious freedom is an intensely personal unknown.
Should al-Sharaa continue to signal support for the rights of Christians and others, that would be a fundamental shift for the better. But that outcome is far from guaranteed, and a reversion to his old ways when he worked with the Islamic State group and al-Qaida would be disastrous for these already vulnerable communities that suffered so much under Assad.
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