Shara and Moderate Islam: Exploiting Grievances´-or-Fragmenting Syrian Identity?

From the first days of the Syrian uprising, most political and military actors and large swathes of society called for international intervention under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The aim was straightforward: stop a regime that used killing and starvation as instruments of rule. Only a handful of cultural figures and the National Coordination Committee dissented. Over time, Syria turned into a battleground for external powers, and its cities paid the price.

When peaceful protesters in Sweida raised the call for a political transition, their demand looked, at least at first, like a return to the revolution s original aims. Instead of being heard, many of those voices were quickly dismissed as agents of foreign powers.But is Sweida truly the catalyst for external interference?´-or-is something else at work a rise in sectarian, tribal, and regional mobilization that tears at the social fabric and invites outside actors to step in?

That question matters because it points to a deeper debate: can a figure like Shara reasonably be cast as the champion of moderate Islam, building a regional bloc backed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and Jordan? The evidence is not convincing.

Shara lacks the institutional backbone and military infrastructure needed to shepherd a stable transition. What has been credited to him so far has coincided with an intensification of sectarian rhetoric and episodes of violence against diverse communities outcomes that deepen societal rifts rather than heal them. His willingness to engage in controversial regional arrangements only raises more doubts about the role he is being positioned to play.

The larger danger is structural. This trajectory risks -convert--ing a broad, cultural Islamic identity one that historically has been inclusive and civilizational in scope into a narrow, sectarian banner. Syria’s Islamic identity has never belonged to a single sect. It is woven into the old quarters of Damascus, the minarets and markets, the caravanserais of Aleppo, and the shared cultural memory of the Arab world. Turning that shared inheritance into a tool of exclusion would not only harm minorities it would erode the country’s common ground.

So what should follow? Not the weaponization of identity, but its reclamation as a civic and cultural umbrella wide enough to hold all communities. That is the only practical way to counter projects of fragmentation and to rebuild a social contract founded on reconciliation and mutual recognition not exclusion´-or-vengeance.

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