Infightings – Bringing Nothing to Nowhere

5 years ago, when the Revolution started, the main goal was to fight against the regime and take Bashar off the power. People were willing to unite themselves for this single cause. Groups were fighting side by side to take territories from Assad’ hands with hopes of freeing the country.

Now, the scenery we have is quiet different, groups are falling apart, even Islamists groups that were supposed to stay united, no longer support each other, and some groups are instead, taking the regime and alike as allies to fight against each other.

Rebels carry Ahrar Al-Sham (left), Free Syrian Army (center) and Nusra Front (right) flags in Idlib. March 29, 2015. 

Instead of uniting themselves, groups prefer to declare war against their own brothers, in order to protect their own status. Most of the times, not seeking benefit to the Syrian people, but for themselves. Everybody wants power, and once you get it you don’t want to lose it.

“Power is always dangerous, It attracts the worst and corrupts the best” - Edward Abbey

The main goal of Islamist groups were to build a State ruled by Sharia, based on the Quran and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), yet they can’t even agree with each other about their understanding of Sharia itself. And instead of trying to solve their differences and find an agreement between parts, they prefer to take the hard way afraid of losing their power and their benefits to another leader.

There are those who say that all this infights is just a matter of Aqeedah, it’s a fact that each groups has a different Aqeedah. But what they don’t realize is that they can’t just change Aqeedah to fit their group’s politics, rather they should do the opposite, molding their politics accordingly to Aqeedah, maybe like this they would be able to see they are not so different from each other and maybe find a way in between their group’s projects and vision of the future.

Ahrar is a good example of a group who molds Aqeedah to fits their politics. They have their own politics, and they say they want implement Sharia, but so far they did not. They say they support and work with others rebels groups, yet they don’t lose the opportunity to accuse and slander them.

A couple of days ago, Ahrar just stormed at the house of Hassam Aboud’s cousin in Sarmin, he got shahada in Khanaser, so his family was having a ceremony at his own house. Ahrar attacked the house and tried to arrest an old man. By the time Jund al Aqsa responded, Ahrar al Sham went off, avoiding confrontation. Later Ahrar accused Jund al Aqsa of joining the ceremony, when they actually were not.

Ahrar says they support al Nusra, “they just have different projects” they say, yet before Nusra attacking Div 13’ in Idlib, Ahrar advised Div 13 to hide all their heavy weapons before the attack happened. And so they did. After that, Ahrar also condemned Jund al Aqsa for taking part in the attack and killing some Div 13 soldier.

The thing with Ahrar is that they want to build a nation, they want to be part of the solution of Syria, yet they want to rip other mujahideen out of it as if they were not supposed to be part of the solution as well.

Another example of disunity happened during the offensive of SAA in Aleppo. ISIS were trying to take Khanaser Road back, some brothers in Liwa Tawba, a Jabhat affiliated group joined them trying to repel SAA, the idea was to take the road back to the rebel’s hand, which would benefit all groups in Aleppo. Yet as soon as rebels heard that, they condemned it, and after the offensive, JN made some arrests.

The war between ISIS and Nusra is not something new, we can easily say that basically this is a long term infighting happening since the division/creating of these two groups, from then to now things just got worst and no prospect of improvement.

If we were to list every causality between the Islamic State and Jabhat al Nusra, we would be writing pages and pages of reports, so just to make thing short, let’s list the more mainstream ones:

From articles in their magazines containing threats and accusations, to dispute of territory in real battles, like those seen in Deir ez Zor and Qalamoun, to mujahideen being arrested for fighting in the same side, just like it happened in the offensive in Khanaser Road and to Amirs being murdered, as it was the case of Abu Usama al Maghrebi.

With Islamists groups stepping back and pulling out their support for one another, the regime is advancing again. In a time of difficulty what groups need the less is disunity and that’s exactly what the Regime and their allies want, groups fighting and weakening each other, making them easier targets.

Instead of uniting, you see new groups being formed all the time, new groups, new leaders, different points of view and projects, which ended up bringing even more divergences. How will they ever find a solution for the whole country, when they can’t even find a solution between themselves? How will they fix divergences and provide a good quality of life for those living in their territory if they treat even their own brother with hostility?

Beauty is Everywhere

A flower in a Hell Cannon somewhere in Syria

(Syria)

A Muslimah in the Crowd

I find it fascinated the mix of feelings you receive when you tell people around you that you are a muslimah (a muslim woman) not only a muslimah, but also a revert (non-muslim born). You experience all kind of feeling and faces, you see those people who look surprised but interested in the topic, in your religion, in your story, but you also experience those who does look surprised, but as if it was a depressive thing, as if they could almost feel the pain (?) inside you….

What pain?

People still have the vision of oppression toward women in Islam, but the question is what does make them feel like this? Because we cover ourselves up? Because we stay at home and take care of the family?

People are afraid of the unknown, and when exposed to a different situation/information they prefer to assume things, not only assuming but also to complicate simple things, instead of going after the correct information, instead of asking around. When the lack of knowledge hits them, they just prefer to create an explanation that they would be satisfied with, that would mentally protect themselves or their own believes.

I can’t understand why they have that feeling of a covered woman is oppressed while a half naked woman is not. What does prevent the half naked woman not to be hit by her husband or not to obey him? And what makes they think that just because one covers herself up, she is totally oppressed by her family/society?

Have you ever thought that maybe we cover ourselves up, because we simply like to do so? Because we feel good doing what God commanded as to do? Because we feel proud to be following our religion not because we are oppressed but because this is our belief?

Sometimes I feel like these people studied too much math at school: If it is simple, then it is wrong.

These days I was talking to my mom about it, and she reminded me of a documentary we (pretty much everybody in my country since it was on open TV) watched about the life of some couples in Middle Eastern countries, showing the life of 5 or 6 women who suffered domestic violence. But wait… do these 5 or 6 women really represent a whole nation? Does it represent the life of every Middle Eastern couple? Or every Arab couple? Or even, every Muslim couple? Does it only happen to Muslims? Or we could not be able to find 5 or 6 women who suffered domestic violence among the non-muslims as well?

It’s pretty easy to gather 6 people with a similar background and assume it is the whole nation’s background.

It is also pretty easy for me to go to a not well known country in the globe, and come back home telling everybody that in that place people do this and that. Who would say I’m wrong when nobody else was there to confirm it?

It is easy to visit Afghanistan and come back saying that women there is forced by their husbands to wear a burqa otherwise they would beat them up at home. Who would say I’m wrong? My neighbor? Did she ever go to Afghanistan to say otherwise?

“Oh it is wrong, they wear burqa because they want to, not because their husband commanded them to.” –Neighbor

I’m not an old nor experienced person, but with the small knowledge and experience I have I can easily affirm to you that “Life is the same all around the world”. You will find happy and not happy people and couples everywhere in the globe; it doesn’t depend on where you are or what’s your religion. Good and bad people are everywhere.

The fact that the clothes cover our body doesn’t mean that it covers also our personalities. The clothes don’t make us feel less important in the society, it can cover our mouths but it doesn’t shut it. Just because we wear a hijab doesn’t mean that we don’t have self confidence or our own opinions. It also doesn’t prevent me of being a schooled or smart person.

Or you really think we don’t know how to deal with our business by our own?

“Do not be people without minds of your own, saying that if others treat you well you will treat them well and that if they do wrong you will do wrong. But accustom yourselves to do good if people do good and not to do wrong if they do evil.” 

-Prophet Muhammad (saw) -Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1325.