Once the power holders under Assad, Syria’s Alawites now fear for their fates
Deposed leader’s minority sect now gripped by uncertainty and worry over reprisals from country’s other 90%, amid looming risk of Muslim extremism
Gianluca Pacchiani is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
Following the lightning victory by rebels against the Bashar al-Assad regime, jihadi rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, widely known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, has gone to great pains to reassure Syrians and the international community that the rights of religious minorities will be respected.
During a recent meeting with representatives of the country’s Druze community, he said: “There must be a social contract between the state and all religions to guarantee social justice.” Al-Sharaa has also met with clerics from the country’s millennia-old Christian communities, promising that their freedom of worship will be respected.
The Assad regime, too, consistently portrayed itself as the defender of religious minorities against the Sunni Muslim majority. This rhetoric ramped up after the outbreak of the civil war in 2011 and the emergence of Sunni terror groups such as Islamic State and the al-Nusra front affiliated with al-Qaeda — of which Al-Sharaa was the founder and leader.
While today uncertainty prevails among all of Syria’s religious minorities, the Alawite community — from which deposed president Assad hails — arguably has the most to fear.
The Alawites’ concerns are twofold: They are afraid of a possible reckoning by rebels on the grounds of their presumed identification with the Assad regime, and they are worried about persecution by radical Islamists who view them as heretics for their departure from Islam in the 9th century.
“The hostility [against Alawites] is very strong and very dangerous,” according to prominent Islam historian Daniel Pipes, who has researched and written about the Syrian Alawites since the 1980s.
“Let’s hope that Ahmad al-Sharaa is a moderate Islamist. But I’ve lived through [the Iranian Islamic Revolution led by Ruhollah] Khomeini. I’ve lived through the Taliban. I’m very skeptical,” Pipes told The Times of Israel.
The academic is the founder and chairman of the conservative Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum.
A community painted with the same brush
Ali, an Alawite student from the Alawite-majority city of Latakia in his early 20s, told The Times of Israel that the majority of his community turned against the Assad regime in recent years due to endemic corruption and worsening economic conditions.
After the fall of the regime, the Alawite community will notice the absence of its position of power under Assad and its prestigious roles in the army, but for most citizens, the corruption overshadowed those benefits, Ali said. Exceptions include Alawites with close ties to the Assad family or those in the shabiha, armed loyalist militias that engaged in criminal enterprises like prostitution and drug smuggling — particularly of the Captagon amphetamine, which earned billions for the regime and its lackeys.
Like all other Syrians, Alawites who were not close to the Assads struggled to make ends meet. Ali said that his father, a university professor, earns the equivalent of $20 a month, an average public sector salary after the currency lost 80% of its value since the start of the civil war and far from enough to support a family.
Private sector employees reportedly earn around $60 a month but have fewer benefits and lower pensions. An average family requires about $100-$200 monthly to cover expenses. Syrians often rely on remittances from family abroad or second jobs, while a few lucky, well-connected individuals make a living wage by working for foreign organizations.
A secretive, marginalized sect catapulted to power
Alawites, a sect that splintered from Shiite Islam in the ninth century, constitute around 10% of Syria’s predominantly Sunni population. Unlike Sunnis and Christians, their numbers have not dropped dramatically during the civil war due to mass emigration.
The Alawites’ religious doctrine and rituals remain highly secretive, guarded by male followers, and often unknown even to the sect’s women. Some reports highlight similarities with Christianity, rooted in the Alawites’ origins within a geographic region of Byzantine-Muslim interaction along Syria’s northwestern border. Allegedly, their religious ceremonies involve bread and wine. (Alcohol is forbidden in mainstream Islam.)
For centuries, Alawites, also known as Nusayris, were Syria’s poorest and least educated people, living mainly in rural villages along the coastal region.
Their fortunes shifted after World War I, when French colonial rule granted them career opportunities in the military. The community provided most of the troops for the French administration and even enjoyed semi-autonomy on the coast between 1922 and 1936 — much like the Druze in southern Syria.
The Alawites’ religious doctrine and rituals remain highly secretive, guarded by male followers, and often unknown even to the sect’s women.
Following independence in 1946, the Alawites remained socially marginalized but maintained an outsized presence in the military. Infighting among Syria’s Sunni elite allowed Alawites to rise within the ruling Socialist Baath Party, culminating in Hafez al-Assad’s 1970 coup (the 10th in 17 years), which secured their dominance for over five decades.
“The Alawites’ rise to power was the most significant event in the history of Syria in the 20th century,” said Pipes. “It was equal to a Jew becoming the czar of Russia, or an untouchable becoming the maharaja of India. It was inconceivable at the time.”
The Sunni majority, long resentful of Alawite rule, formed the backbone of opposition to the Assad regime. The rise of Islamist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda amplified dramatically the religious component of these tensions.
According to the UN, in 2013, armed groups killed at least 190 civilians in a cluster of Alawite villages. In 2015, ISIS carried out public executions of Alawite men accused of fighting for the regime, while Alawite men, women and children have also been abducted and used for prisoner swaps.
Hope and uncertainty in a new era for Syria
For now, calm prevails in Latakia, according to Ali. When rebel groups entered the city on December 8, he said he hunkered down at home for two days, fearful of stray bullets fired by local residents in celebration.
While fears of imposed Islamic law persist, signs are mixed. “There have been reports of rebels breaking into shops that sell alcohol and smashing bottles, or asking women to cover their hair, but these seem to be individual actions, not official HTS policy,” Ali said, referencing the main jihadi rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led by al-Sharaa. “I’ve seen that in Damascus they are still selling alcohol, and that reassures me.”
He acknowledged his community’s vulnerability due to its historic ties to the military. “In Latakia, every family had two or three men in the army. For poor, uneducated Alawites, joining the army was the only way to improve their lives,” Ali said.
“We are afraid now of rulers we don’t know, but we were already living in fear before. Alawites could not say in public that they opposed Assad, or else they would be considered traitors,” he added.
This Damascus bar opened yesterday, but caustiosly – the hts office he asked told him to go about his regular work. pic.twitter.com/e46nE4Z8A3
— Mo Ghaoui (@moghaoui) December 17, 2024
Leyla, an Alawite engineer in her 50s who asked to use a pseudonym for her own safety, told The Times of Israel that her fear is that “[rebel] factions will fight for power and chaos will prevail,” adding that she found it hard to believe that “an extremist organization and ideology will suddenly turn into Mahatma Gandhi.”
“All minorities now demand a new constitution that will establish the state of law and preserve the rights of all citizens and will not exclude any party. Religion belongs to God and the homeland belongs to us all,” Leyla said.
Israel’s destruction of 80% of Syria’s military capabilities has also added to the widespread sense of insecurity, as some feel that the country is now exposed to foreign control, particularly by nearby Turkey.
Still, Ali remains cautiously optimistic. “In the past, I wanted to leave Syria because the situation was so bad. Now, I’m 90% sure the future will be better. Most people don’t agree with me, but I’m hopeful.”
