Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood fights for its future

DAMASCUS — On Sunday, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood announced it held a Shura Council meeting, the second of its kind since the fall of the Assad regime. In the statement, the group applauded the convening of the Syrian parliament, stressing its importance in “establishing organized political pluralism,” even as the status of political parties remains deeply uncertain in the country.

Founded in 1945, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is an offshoot of the Egyptian Islamist movement of the same name. In 1980, President Hafez al-Assad banned the group in response to growing Islamist militancy, making it a capital offense to belong to it. In 1982, an offshoot of the organization attempted to mount an armed rebellion, to which the Syrian regime responded with the Hama massacre. Tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters and civilians were killed or arrested, driving the group into exile. 

Today, the group is facing external pressure to disband, while also suffering from a host of internal challenges, raising the question: what is the future of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and political parties more broadly?

Calls for dissolution

In 2025, al-Sharaa announced the dissolution of the Baath Party and parties affiliated with the National Progressive Front. Then, a few months later, the Constitutional Declaration, an interim constitution of sorts, decreed that “political participation and the formation of parties” will be enshrined “according to a new law,” which has yet to be drafted. Under the newly adopted procedures governing parliament’s work, political blocs and parties will be banned within the legislative body. 

The most recent Muslim Brotherhood statement speaks of “partnering with national forces to rebuild the country,” indicating that the group is preparing to participate in elections, said Abdulrahman Alhaj, a specialist on Islamist groups. General elections are scheduled to take place in three or four years. However, political parties may not be legalized before then. 

Furthermore, statements by figures in the government—including al-Sharaa himself—leave the fate of the Muslim Brotherhood uncertain. Last year, al-Sharaa hosted a delegation of Arab journalists, telling them: “I am not an extension of Islamist parties or jihadist organizations, nor am I an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

A few days later, Ahmed Mawafak Zaidan, adviser to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, called for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood to disband, causing widespread controversy. His editorial, published by Al Jazeera, followed statements from the president distancing himself from the organization. 

Zaidan, himself formerly aligned with the Brotherhood, cited the need for unity and evoked the group’s historic shortcomings. “Dissolving the organization today, as other components have done, will serve the country, which is our collective capital and goal,” he wrote.

Zaidan’s call was preceded by the resignation of Mulham al-Droubi, the spokesperson for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, in early August over his opposition to the organization’s decision not to dissolve.

“The group’s most important goals in Syria were achieved with the fall of the regime,” Zaidan told Al Jazeera. “National unity is essential…by abandoning partisan agendas and prioritizing the public interest.”

“The group was and remains part of the Syrian landscape and a power supporting the transitional phase.” 

In response, Amer al-Bu Salameh, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader, declared that the group’s dissolution “is not in the national interest or in the interest of Syria,” in an interview with Al Jazeera later that month. “The group was and remains part of the Syrian landscape and a power supporting the transitional phase,” he said. 

Salameh denied the Syrian government was pressuring the group to dissolve itself, dismissing calls in the media as “personal opinions.”

External and internal challenges

Attempts to dissolve the group are to “reassure Arab states that the Arab Spring is over in Syria and that Syria will work with them within a shared vision,” Alhaj said.

For Raphaël Lefèvre, a researcher in Islamist politics, a ban on the party “would please both the Saudis and a section of Syrian society.” 

“The Muslim Brotherhood has not been in exile for 40 years just to see the overthrow of Assad, return to Syria, and go dormant politically.” 

Saudi Arabia, one of the key backers of the Syrian government, considers the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization. The group is also banned in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan. Syria has reestablished diplomatic ties with all of these countries. 

“There is a regional context that considers the Muslim Brotherhood a threat to the stability of [Arab] regimes and links the Brotherhood to the Arab Spring revolutions,” explained Alhaj.

“The international pressures on the current regime in Syria are severe from different countries, whether Arab or Western,” Abu Monther (a pseudonym), a former leader in the organization, echoed. “As a result, the government wants to distance itself from the Brotherhood.”

“This week’s statement emphasizes the organization’s independence from the global organization…positioning itself instead as a Syrian organization with local objectives confined to Syrian territory,” Alhaj explained.

However, external pressure is not the only challenge the group faces today. “It’s been based in exile for four decades just trying to survive, which has deeply disconnected it from Syrian society—it’ll take years to rebuild its influence,” Lefèvre said.

This disconnect continued during the civil war. “The organization was unable to play an influential role in the revolution despite its participation in political and military actions,” Alhaj said. “This has weakened its expansion within Syrian society, as its social base relies almost entirely on family ties dating back to the Brotherhood’s presence in Syria before 1982.”

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood sponsored and coordinated with multiple factions under the umbrella of the Shields of the Revolution Commission. However, internal disagreements within the Brotherhood and dwindling funding, among other factors, drove many fighters to join other factions.

“The group is not at the height of its organizational power, as it was in the 1980s,” al-Droubi told Syria Direct. “The group’s methods and tools have become outdated and unattractive to young people and need creative renewal…often clashing with inflexible mindsets.” 

“The group’s methods and tools have become outdated and unattractive to young people and need creative renewal.”

Regional and generational divisions have also played a role in weakening the group. Power struggles persist between members from Damascus and Aleppo, while older members of the group dominate the leadership, creating resentment among its younger ranks, Alhaj explained. 

The Brotherhood also represents a political competitor to the Syrian government whose leadership is dominated by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). “The discourse of HTS is shifting from radical Salafism and jihadism to the mainstream of the Syrian Islamist landscape where the Brotherhood is located,” Lefèvre said. 

“The ideological rivalry between the Brotherhood and HTS is over Islamic authority, as both present themselves as national projects with Islamic authority… the two projects have become very similar,” Alhaj echoed. However, the Muslim Brotherhood is unable to compete with HTS’s revolutionary credentials as the leading force in overthrowing the Assad regime, he added.

Since 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood and HTS have been in different and sometimes opposed camps within the Syrian opposition. “The former was key to the National Coalition based in Istanbul, promoting a civil state in Syria and backing rebel brigades affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, while the latter always mocked opponents in exile, often used sectarian discourse, and opportunistically tried crushing more moderate, rival rebel groups to expand its influence,” Lefèvre explained.

Temporary dissolution

Salameh, the group’s leader, did not rule out rebranding the group in his interview with Al Jazeera. Many branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in neighboring countries have changed the group’s original name and removed references to the group, such as in Jordan.

However, Salameh described “the dissolution of the group as a historical and national body” as “out of the question.”

“The Brotherhood was subjected to executions [and] security crackdowns, and it didn’t dissolve itself,” Abu Monther said. As a result, it is “impossible” the group would do so now, he said.

“There are no longer sufficient justifications to remain in Syria, to avoid numerous potential problems,” al-Droubi reiterated. “This orientation is beginning to spread and expand among the group’s ranks, which may force its leadership to abandon the name of the Muslim Brotherhood and reorganize its ranks on new legal grounds within Syria, or remain in exile.”

The organization is focusing on its religious and charitable activities, or da’wa, and has put its political activities on hold until general elections are held, Abu Monther explained. “Besides, most of the Brotherhood’s policies converge with those of the current government.” 

Alhaj predicts the group “will most likely constitute a moderate political force that will play a role in the permanent parliament [following the transitional period].” 

“Until now, the state has not asked the Brotherhood to disband, and in a country of newfound freedom the government cannot outright ban political parties,” Abu Monther added.

“The Muslim Brotherhood has not been in exile for 40 years just to see the overthrow of Assad, return to Syria, and go dormant politically,” Lefèvre added. “They may lie low for a while, but they won’t give up easily.”