Ever since the start of the unrest in Syria, in March 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood has been identified as a leader of the campaign to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. In truth, the Syrian president himself had a hand in the efforts to highlight the Brotherhood's role in organizing the violence and even blamed it for acts of terrorism against the Syrian people. There is no doubt that the regime wanted to remind the world of the movement's violent history and the years of the rebellion against the Baathist government (1976-82). That bloody episode still haunts the movement today.¹ In practice, however, after the massacre in Hama and the crushing of the rebellion, the Muslim Brotherhood became a pale shadow of its past self. Many years and a long process of rehabilitation were required for it to retrieve a modicum of its former strength. The movement lost its bases of power and support in Syria, its leaders were dispersed, and its center of activity was relocated outside the country, primarily to Europe.

The main aim of this article is to examine the status, role and activity of the Muslim Brotherhood since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria. It follows the transformation of the Brotherhood from an establishment movement involved in governing the country into a violent organization opposed to the Baathist regime. It also examines the years of reconstruction in exile and the return to a conciliatory line, and even a willingness to engage in dialogue with Assad. Finally, it offers an in-depth analysis of the Brotherhood's activity and its role in the opposition, from the start of the Arab Spring in Syria until early 2015, including the need to react to the radical Islamist organizations that entered Syria and began imposing their religious and political worldviews in the territories they overran.

"THE DEMONS OF HAMA": 1946-82

In the mid-1940s, during the final years of the French mandate in Syria, a number of Islamic associations merged into a single movement — the Muslim Brotherhood. Syria was the first country, after Egypt, with a local branch. Sheikh Mustafa al-Sibai, a cleric from Homs, was chosen to lead the organization in Syria. Whereas the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hasan al-Banna, aspired to establish an Islamic regime in his country, the Syrian branch was moderate and preferred to find a place in the domestic establishment. As a movement based on the urban middle class, the Brotherhood derived its strength from Syria's four largest cities — Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and Hama — and was effectively an organic part of the young state's sociopolitical order. Nevertheless, it lacked support among the educated middle class, minorities, the armed forces and residents of the rural periphery. In the parliamentary elections held in 1947, the Brotherhood won only four of the 130 seats; in 1961, in the first election after Syria's secession from the United Arab Republic (its short-lived federation with Egypt), it did better and won 10 seats. In the interim, several representatives of the movement held ministerial portfolios in the Syrian government, and Supreme Guide Issam al-Attar, al-Sibai's successor, was even offered the post of deputy prime minister.²

The first cracks between the Brotherhood and the Syrian establishment emerged when a military coup (March 8, 1963) brought the Baath movement to power. The Baath, with its secular-nationalist ideology, aimed at overturning the social pyramid in Syria. Its reforms hurt both the Sunni elite and the urban middle class, which were among the strongest supporters of the Brotherhood. In addition, because the Baath regime had a dictatorial style and was supported by many minorities, including the Alawites — considered heretics by other Muslims — the hostility towards the regime grew. Thus it was only a short time until religious circles, the representatives of the old-line Sunni urban order, reached the point where they felt obligated to take a stand against the regime and prevent it from enacting its planned social, economic, political and cultural changes. Clashes soon broke out between supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and the regime. The movement was outlawed and its leaders arrested; al-Attar went into exile in 1964. Nevertheless, tensions did not abate. Violent disturbances broke out in Hama in April 1964 and in Damascus in January 1965. The rioters included shopkeepers, merchants and students, who called for the restoration of democracy. The regime put down the unrest with an iron fist.³