Whereas many cities and towns in Syria saw widespread celebrations to commemorate the first anniversary of the downfall of the Assad regime, the Islamic State, which has recently begun to claim more attacks against the new Syrian government, has rather predictably put out an editorial for the occasion to re-emphasise its opposition to and denunciation of the government.
The editorial lambasts the Syrian revolution and anniversary as a typical example of modern Arab revolutions and ‘days of liberation,’ while also highlighting in particular the relations that Syria’s president Ahmad al-Sharaa has forged with the United States and the conditions stipulated for the lifting of the Caesar sanctions. The editorial concludes by repeating a previous line of attack on al-Sharaa as one of the foremost examples of a traitor to Islam, and noting that Syria has only been ‘liberated’ from the rule of Islamic law, which the Islamic State’s fighters commit to uphold.
Below is the editorial fully translated by me. I have also inserted some annotations for context.
Victory until the palace!
The calendar for the Arab states and governments is filled with celebrations of independence, liberation and sovereignty, and count as many features of lost victory as you like, for Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Kuwait, Algeria, UAE, Bahrain and other countries have all gained independence and liberation! So what is missing for Syria to celebrate a day of this sort?!
Most Arab revolutions ended in a similar way, as though they were copies of an original, copied multiple times over extended periods.
Most Arab revolutions ended in a similar way, as though they were copies of an original, copied multiple times over extended periods: a nationalist, patriotic revolutionary fight, which begins in a state of improvision and zeal without a programmatic direction, and is soon enough enveloped by the global forces of disbelief and is used by them for their agendas via paths of containment, convergence, taming and recruitment. Then the scene ends with ‘independence and liberation’, which the invaders themselves have approved to pass, with the necessary changes to the form of rule or the form of the ruler. Then this day becomes a ‘national day’ and ‘anniversary’ to celebrate ‘victory and liberation’ with masses thirsty for it, but seeking it in the wrong context.
Is there a single apostate government that does not have an annual occasion to celebrate ‘independence’ when in fact this thing and ‘subordination’ are one and the same, or an anniversary of ‘liberation’ that was engineered by the invaders themselves who laid the ground-work for it with guns and politics, and adorned telegrams of congratulations for it and celebrated the occasion side-by-side with the victorious liberated people, at a time when ‘victory’, ‘liberation’ and the ‘law’ became applied to their opposites?!
In our age many concepts have become subject to falsification and distortion, among them the concept of victory and liberation, which has been re-defined in the framework of international legitimacy and national constitutions, far-removed from the shade of the Islamic Shari’a, with the new Syrian Taghut proving his ‘earnestness’ in waging war on it and being liberated from it. Is this the ‘liberation’ they are celebrating?
Many are hurrying to roar and bellow, saying: ‘Whoever is not pleased with what pleases the believers, and is not harmed by what harms the believers, is not one of them.’[i] That is true, but what if those people are affiliated with what harms them and does not benefit them? What if they don’t know the difference between their victory and defeat, their freedom and their servitude, or even their friend and enemy?! Crusader America has become a ‘friend’ in their eyes! What pleases it is what is pleasing to them, and what harms it is what harms them. They align with its allies and are hostile to its enemies. They live under America’s approval and eagerly await its decisions and its Taghut’s signatures. They seek America’s rewards and fear its punishments! And here today they celebrate with it a victory and liberation that has not departed one inch from its satisfaction and interests!
On the day when the mujahidin realised true victory in the form of the sovereignty of the Shari’a, contrary to what America wants, they backstabbed it, backbit against it and rejected it, because it restricted their whims, outbursts and desires, and thus they conspired against it and gathered to wage war on it in an ‘international coalition’ that the ‘victorious ones’ have celebrated joining it and becoming affiliated with it, in a picture that can be summarised as follows: the difference between those who call for a caliphate on the prophetic methodology, and those who call for a successor to the Assad regime in rule.
“The Syrian government is to take tangible and real steps to eliminate the threat posed by the Islamic State and terrorist groups...in partnership with America, and prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State.”
The ultimate goal of these people and their revolutions and the peak of their ambitions is to reach the seat of power, in order to replay the role of the same Taghut they were compelled to fight, in a repeated Jahili cycle, the first phase being revolution, the middle being betrayal, and the final being manumission from terrorism!
The ‘anniversary of the liberation’ has coincided with talk about cancellation of the ‘Caesar law’ that America imposed to punish Assad and his regime while intending to lift it today in order to reward Jowlani and his regime! Surely has Jowlani been more useful, beneficial and pleasing to American than Assad?!
We put before the reader a literal quotation of the conditions that the American ‘Congress’ imposed on the Jowlani regime to cancel the ‘Ceasar’ sanctions, its first clause being: ‘The Syrian government is to take tangible and real steps to eliminate the threat posed by the Islamic State and terrorist groups...in partnership with America, and prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State.’
In addition, there are other conditions linked to ‘removing foreign fighters from senior positions in the Syrian government,’ ‘respecting freedom of worship and belief for religious minorities’, and ‘not conducting any unilateral and unjustified military operations against neighbouring states, and continuing to realise progress towards international security agreements.’ This last clause is left for the reader to interpret with regards to its true intention, but we will give the reader a short hint in two words: ‘The security of the Jews.’[ii]
Coming back to the atmosphere of celebration of ‘Syria’s National Day’, from which the Jews were incidentally not absent: among the scenes on the day of liberation was the deployment of Jewish military checkpoints in the depth of Syria’s liberated lands, where the soldiers of the ‘liberation army’ exchanged glances with the Jewish army’s soldiers. Then they passed through their checkpoints as lowly people do, so they can complete their liberation march in which the password was: bringing down the Iranian axis. While the rest came as a tautology or a gain for Erdogan! As the saying goes: ‘The catastrophes of one people are benefits for another people.’ For Assad has gone and the hyena has come, and the land has remained as before, ruled by the law of the jungle.
Jowlani- Trump’s protégé, target of his perfume and ploughing field in his war on Islam- has constituted the worst and darkest page of betrayal in modern Islamic history, whereby he was allowed to enter the presidential palaces on broadcast screens in a setting free of aircraft in al-Sham’s sky which, in the time of the Islamic State, needed a ‘traffic policeman’ to organise their movement because of their large number. But not one of them was friendly aircraft! All of them were hostile! And all of them disappeared during the days of liberation, leaving the enemy of the law[iii] to move freely from Idlib to Damascus, theorising about the constitution and state of law. So what sort of liberation are you speaking about?
Like other revolutions, the page of the Syrian revolution has been closed with a Syria liberated from the Shari’a.
Syria has indeed been liberated, but from the rule of Islam that Jowlani has waged war on with all his power over the years of his revolution, resorting to the help of devils among men and jinn in order to destroy its edifice, such that he has worthily deserved the American rewards that Assad failed to obtain for his disbelief, criminality and unique success in protecting the Jewish borders in a way that was unparalleled for anyone else. Surely Assad’s new successor is implementing those very things?!
Like other revolutions, the page of the Syrian revolution has been closed with a Syria liberated from the Shari’a. As for the mujahidin, their determination has been kindled and based on restoring Syria to the embrace of Islam, and keeping it within the limits of servitude to God alone, until Jesus the son of Mary (peace be upon him) descends at the white minaret,[iv] the mention of which has disappeared from the literature of the one-eyed revolution.[v] Truly it was a revolution until the palace! But victory has its heroes and fields, and its path outlined by the Prophet (SAWS) and taken by the conquering companions. Read, if you wish, the Almighty’s words: ‘This is My path, straight, so follow it, and do not follow the other paths that would separate you from His path. He has advised you of this so that you may be pious.’[vi]
[i] Words of Ibn Taymiyya, a scholar frequently cited by Salafis and Islamic State.
[ii] In Arabic: ‘amn al-yahud’ (which counts as two words).
[iii] A play on the real name of the Syrian president: Ahmad al-Sharaa (أحمد الشرع), with the Arabic word for ‘law’ (i.e. God’s law) being spelt in the same way: الشرع.
[iv] An Islamic eschatological tradition in which Jesus appears at the ‘white minaret’ near Damascus in order to look for and kill the Dajjal [Antichrist].
[v] For comparison, Jabhat al-Nusra (which was initially affiliated with Islamic State of Iraq and then al-Qa’ida before breaking off from the latter by forming Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) had a media outlet called ‘The White Minaret.’
[vi] Qur’an 6:153.
