The Changing Role of Islam in Syria: A Chronology of Recent Development

The role of Islam in Syria is changing. From former President Hafez al Assad’s failed attempt to change the 1973 constitution that said the president of Syria must be a Muslim, to the outlawing in Law 49 of the Muslim Brotherhood after the Islamist group’s armed uprising against the state was brutally crushed leading to the deaths in Hama in 1982 of an estimated 20,000 Syrians the ruling Ba’ath Party has historically sought to secularize Syria as much as its grip on power would allow.