Three months after his arrest, Mufti Hassoun remains jailed as Sunni repression deepens in Syria

June 24, 2025 by News Desk

Today marks three months since the arrest of Syria’s former Grand Mufti, Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, amid a growing campaign of repression targeting Sunni religious scholars under the country’s new leadership.

Hassoun was detained on 25 March 2025 at Damascus International Airport, reportedly while disguised as a patient bound for Jordan to seek medical treatment.

According to news reports, at the airport, he was stopped inside the VIP terminal shortly before boarding his flight. The following day, on 26 March, an arrest warrant was issued by the newly formed Attorney General’s Office, accusing him of attempting to flee from justice.

Footage and photos shared online appeared to show Hassoun blindfolded and under arrest. Authorities have yet to make any formal statement about his case, and his current location remains unknown.

Hassoun, who served as Syria’s Grand Mufti from 2005 until the role was abolished in 2021, was one of the most prominent religious figures of the Assad era. Known for his unwavering loyalty to the former regime, he often used his platform to justify Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on civilian uprisings.

His arrest, following the fall of Assad’s government in December 2024, has come to symbolize the shifting balance of power in a country now under an entirely new and controversial authority.

In the months since Assad’s ouster, Syria has come under the control of a transitional government dominated by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former al-Qaeda affiliate that had long controlled Idlib province in the northwest.

After taking Damascus in December and declaring a caretaker government, HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa — formerly known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani — was named interim president.

On 13 March 2025, his administration introduced a provisional constitution aimed at unifying Syria under a central Salafi-inspired order.

This new political and religious structure has brought with it an intensification of efforts to dismantle traditional Sunni religious life, particularly the Hanafi and Sufi currents that had historically shaped Syrian Islam. Under al-Sharaa’s leadership, the Syrian Salvation Government — HTS’s civilian front — has systematically removed scholars and clerics who adhere to Hanafi jurisprudence.

From 2018 through 2024, dozens of imams in Idlib, Ariha, and western Aleppo were forced out of mosques for refusing to adopt the group’s hardline Salafi interpretations. That campaign has now expanded nationwide.

In early 2025, the Ministry of Religious Affairs extended its restrictions on Sufi and traditional practices across newly acquired regions, banning public celebrations of Mawlid (the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday), dhikr gatherings, and devotional circles.

These actions are officially justified as an effort to eliminate “un-Islamic innovations,” but critics argue they are part of a broader strategy to erase religious pluralism and replace it with a single, state-sanctioned ideology.

The repression is not limited to policy. In January 2025, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Halabi, a well-known Hanafi scholar who had relocated to Idlib to continue his teaching, was arrested after refusing to issue a legal opinion that aligned with HTS directives.

He has not been seen since.

Other respected Sunni scholars from Damascus and Aleppo have either gone silent or disappeared altogether.

Meanwhile, prominent figures in exile — including Sheikh Usama al-Rifai and Sheikh Abdul Razzaq al-Mahdi — have been subjected to online smear campaigns by media outlets aligned with the new government.

The case of Hassoun stands out not only because of his previous status but also because of the irony it embodies.

With Ahmad Hassoun still behind bars after three months, and an increasing number of scholars forced into silence or exile, the landscape of Syrian Islam has changed dramatically.

The marginalization of Syria’s traditional Sunni clergy, especially those from the Hanafi school, began well before the rise of HTS.

Under Bashar al-Assad’s rule, a campaign of state control and repression gradually weakened independent religious authority. Starting in the early 2000s and accelerating after the 2011 uprising, the regime systematically pushed aside clerics who refused to align their sermons with state narratives.

Between 2011 and 2015, numerous imams in Damascus, Homs, and Daraa were dismissed or detained, and several well-known clerics disappeared in custody.

Endowments traditionally managed by Hanafi custodians were placed under tighter government control, with the Ministry of Awqaf overseeing appointments and mosque activities.

Traditional religious schools and Quranic institutes were also targeted. Many, especially in Aleppo and Hama, were closed or forced to revise their curriculum to remove classical Hanafi texts and include regime-approved religious instruction.

This created a generation of clerics trained more in political loyalty than in jurisprudential depth.

Assad’s repression of the Hanafi clergy helped hollow out the religious middle ground, weakening institutions that might have resisted both regime domination and later, the rise of militant Salafi groups.

What was once a tapestry of legal schools, spiritual orders, and regional traditions is now being compressed into a rigid mold.

For many Syrians, the question remains whether religious life in their country will ever regain the diversity and independence it once knew.