Thomas Pierret - Religion and State in Syria

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The last lines of this book were written in February 2012, at a time when the bloody suppression of the popular uprising in Syria had been ongoing for almost a year. During these past months, I have thought unceasingly of my many friends and acquaintances who live in, and in some cases have been forced to flee, this country that is so dear to me. It is to them that I address my greatest thanks although, to my regret, the future is still too uncertain to allow me to mention the full names of people currently in Syria. At the top of the list are my guardian angels, the religious students who guided me through the mosques of Damascus and Aleppo: Mostafa, Bara, Ammar, Faris, Ali, Mahmud, Muhammad, and many more may God protect you. Sheikh Ahmad Mouaz al-Khatib has not only been incredibly helpful and generous, but he also taught me much about human values. I also had the chance to meet astute observers such as Abd al-Rahman al-Hajj Ibrahim, Mohamad Berro, and Isam Abdulmola. Finally, I express my gratitude to the protagonists of this book, who agreed to receive me despite the difficult context, and especially to all those who granted me more time and attention than mere courtesy could ever demand.

This book would never have seen the light of day without the support of several institutions whose respective directors provided me with invaluable encouragement and advice. My doctoral research was funded by the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique of Belgium and supervised by Professor Gilles Kepel at Sciences Po Paris (Chaire Moyen-Orient Mditerrane), as well as by Professor Felice Dassetto at the Universit catholique de Louvain (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Islam in the Contemporary World). During my fieldwork in Syria, I appreciated the helpfulness of the staff and Fellows of the French Institute (IFPO). The transformation of my dissertation into a book was facilitated by a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University funded by the Belgian American Educational Foundation and supervised by Professor Michael Cook. The translation into English of the French manuscript was carried out during a visiting fellowship at the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin under the supervision of Professor Ulrike Freitag. For their help in various circumstances, I am also indebted to Amin At-Chaalal, Andrew Arsan, Francis Balace, Annabelle Bttcher, Franois Burgat, Baudouin Dupret, Jean-Pierre Filiu, Michael Gilsenan, Bernard Haykel, Steven Heydemann, Raymond Hinnebusch, Amaney Jamal, Gudrun Krmer, Brigitte Marchal, Tarek Mitri, lizabeth Picard, Bernard Rougier, and Ghassan Salam. The insightful and friendly comments of Mohammad Al Attar, Souhail Belhadj, Ccile Box, Farid El Asri, Thomas Hegghammer, Steffen Hertog, Boris James, Stphane Lacroix, Paulo Pinto, Laura Ruiz de Elvira, Kjetil Selvik, Ward Vloerberghs, and Odai Al Zoubi greatly enriched the content of this book. Sincere thanks also to Benedict Young of Babel Editing for his outstanding job in correcting my translation of the original French text. For reasons that are too numerous to be mentioned here, I cannot overstate my gratitude to Benjamin White.