Syrian reformer rankles Islamists

In a country where conservative Islamic sentiment is rising, Islamist scholar Mohammed Habash's moderate views strike a jarring chord.

Dressed in a tailored tweed suit, he looks more like a college professor than the traditional image of an Islamic religious leader in robes and headdress. But Mr. Habash says he is indeed from the conservative tradition of Islam and was educated only in religious schools.

His interpretation of Islam, however, is anything but conservative. He promotes a reformist vision of Islam that accepts Western ideas, including secular forms of government. Women, he says, are permitted by Islam to receive the same level of education as men and to fully participate in public life, even as religious, political, and business leaders. He advocates peaceful resistance to the US-led occupation in Iraq, in contrast to some clerics in Syria's Sunni Muslim heartland who have encouraged the insurgency. And he rejects what he calls the "monopoly of salvation," the belief that Islam is the only true religion.

"We have to accept other religions," says Habash, director of the Center of Islamic Studies in Damascus. "Islam has to confirm what came before and not cancel [Judaism and Christianity] out. Also, it is not wrong to absorb new ideas from the West and East."

His views have put him at odds with Syria's conservative Muslim clergy that brands all religions other than Islam false and views the West suspiciously.

Even the late Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro, the moderate Grand Mufti of Syria who was a mentor to Habash, released a statement condemning some of his protégé's ideas when Habash was campaigning in Syria's 2003 parliamentary election. Nonetheless, Habash was elected with the highest number of votes after the ruling Baath Party candidates.

The growth of conservative Islam in Syria is partly a reaction to decades of secular Baathist rule and poor economic opportunity. About 20 percent of Syria's workforce is unemployed, and 20 percent of the population of 17 million falls below the poverty line. "Throughout the Arab world, radical Islamization appears to have been the result of many factors - the failure of secular Arab nationalism, the failure of states, and, perhaps most of all, the failure of economic development," says Michael Young, a Lebanese political analyst.

Israeli-Palestinian violence and US Mideast policies have further radicalized Muslims, say experts.

Muslims also are spurred into action by the spreading influence of Western ideas, like globalization and secularism, which threaten to marginalize Islam, says Sadeq al-Azm, a Syrian professor of philosophy teaching in the Netherlands.

"Fundamentalists believe this is the final confrontation," he says. "If the modernization of states continues like this, what is there to prevent Islam from eventually becoming like Christianity in Europe? They feel that if they don't stand up now and draw a line, that's it."

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