Syria’s Al-Sharaa and the Most Dangerous Mutation of Political Islamism

Syria’s interim self-appointed president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who served for two decades as a militant in the al-Qaeda terrorist organization under the alias Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, told the press recently that he does not see himself as an extension of political Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood or classical Salafi-jihadists like ISIS and al-Qaeda. To those who are blind to the many shades of jihadism, these statements might seem to signal that al-Jolani is abandoning his jihadist beliefs or that Syria is entering a post-Islamist era. In reality, these statements are a declaration of the evolution of an even more volatile and dangerous hybrid ideology: neo-Jihadism. 

The Birth of Neo-Jihadism

Unlike the rigid and limited scope of traditional jihadism, neo-Jihadism emphasizes strategic adaptation and long-term objectives that are global rather than local, making it both more insidious and more dangerous than all other forms of political Islamism and Salafi-Jihadism the world has known so far. We are already seeing some Arab and Western leaders falling for al-Sharaa’s rhetoric, mistakenly believing that he offers a better alternative to the existing jihadist and political Islamist movements. U.S. Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack made a shocking statement on a podcast last week that he “trusts al-Sharaa” and that he believes that al-Sharaa’s vision aligns with the goals of the current U.S. administration. Meanwhile, regional leaders, such as Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, have praised al-Sharaa and explicitly expressed “the Kingdom’s confidence and steadfast support” for him.

In that sense, neo-Jihadism can be defined as a new hybrid ideology that combines political Islamism, jihadism, and authoritarian socialism. It is a movement that borrows the political agility of the Muslim Brotherhood, absorbs the tactical pragmatism once championed by Turkey’s AKP, and retains the violent rigor of al-Qaeda and ISIS. What makes it distinct is its use of political realism to maneuver regional and international power struggles, while exploiting the hollow, never-fulfilled socialist promise of “social justice” to manipulate domestic politics and consolidate authoritarian rule.

Indeed, al-Sharaa’s background and character make him the perfect architect of a neo-jihadist trend. Raised under Hafez al-Assad’s Ba’athist regime, with its authoritarian Arab-socialist indoctrination, he absorbed an instinct for centralizing power and bending ideology to circumstance. As a teenager, he gravitated toward al-Qaeda and grew up through its ranks before founding Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – another Salafi-Jihadist group internationally designated as a terrorist organization – and engaging in Syria’s post-Arab Spring civil war. There, he faced off against a crowded field of rivals: Turkey-backed Brotherhood militias, Iran-sponsored Shiite factions, and the most brutal Da’esh (ISIS). Al-Sharaa ultimately outmaneuvered them all, not through purist ideology, but through neo-jihadist strategies that combined political flexibility, communism’s promise of economic reform and social justice, and ruthless militancy.

The End of Political Islamism?

Nevertheless, this is not the first time al-Sharaa has distanced himself from the Muslim Brotherhood. In a 2015 interview on Al-Jazeera, when he still identified as al-Jolani, he mocked the Brotherhood for seeking legitimacy through elections and political compromises, suggesting that they lost in Egypt and Tunisia “because they abandoned jihad for ballots.” Al-Jolani considered the Brotherhood’s trading violent jihad for nonviolent politics a form of weakness. His critique was not about the Brotherhood’s goals or ideology but about its methods for seeking political power. In the same interview, he claimed he shares the same source from which Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, drew. That disdain is also shared by ISIS, which repeatedly criticized the Brotherhood’s preference for peacefully participating in political competition rather than using violent jihad to foster control.

Comparing al-Jolani’s critique to the trajectories of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Ennahda Party in Tunisia and the Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt makes this even clearer. While Ennahda experimented with post-Islamism, Egypt’s Brotherhood, leaning on the Salafists, revealed the perils of ideological inflexibility.

In Tunisia, Rached Ghannouchi’s Ennahda deliberately detached itself from political Islamism, rebranding as “Muslim democrats” and choosing to participate in pluralist politics. In Egypt, the Brotherhood took control of the presidency through Mohamed Morsi and allowed the Salafists, who continued to cling to their radical Islamist identity, to dominate parliament, further alienating centrists and scaring women and religious minorities. As a result, within a year, they were overthrown in a military-backed uprising. The group’s rapid fall from power in Egypt in 2013 resonated in Tunisia and ultimately led to the downfall of the Ennahda party from the presidency in 2014 and thus undermined the potential of political Islamism in the Arab world.

In contrast to the Brotherhood’s experience in Egypt and Tunisia, al-Sharaa’s path represents a third, far darker option. He is not softening Islamism but hardening it by building a hybrid of Brotherhood adaptability, jihadi violence, and socialist authoritarianism.

In a recent op-ed titled “The Final Message: Has the Era of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria Come to an End?”, al-Sharaa’s newly appointed media adviser urged the Brotherhood in Syria to dissolve itself. He argued that political Islamism is no longer relevant in Syria, framing the Brotherhood as an outdated model. This message was published on Al-Jazeera, the same platform that once amplified the Brotherhood’s message. It reflects a regional consensus that has increasingly sought to delegitimize the Brotherhood since 2013, with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and now Syria, all pushing variations of the same line.

For over a decade, at least since the Arab Spring revolutions, scholars and policymakers have debated whether the era of political Islamism is coming to an end. The Muslim Brotherhood’s rapid collapse in Egypt and Tunisia after their surprise rise to power in 2012, the decline in support for Erdogan’s AKP in Turkey in recent years, and the fall of terrorist groups like ISIS in 2015, along with the weakening of Hezbollah and other Shiite militias supported by the Islamic regime in Iran and the weakening of Iran’s regime itself, the defeat of Hamas in Gaza after October 7, 2023, – all seem to suggest that the political Islamist movement has run its course. But this so-called end is deceiving. Beneath the rhetoric lies a power struggle that extends far beyond Syria. 

The Geopolitical Impact

Al-Sharaa’s rivalry with the Muslim Brotherhood reveals the foolishness of Turkey’s political Islamist leadership in trusting, supporting, and empowering him. Al-Sharaa’s current media campaign signals not just a personal feud, but the rise of Saudi Arabia’s Salafist approach over Turkey’s political Islamism in the battle for influence in Syria and across the broader Arab and Muslim worlds. For years, Ankara supported Brotherhood-linked militias in Syria, and when those groups fell apart, it took a gamble on al-Sharaa, thinking he could be shaped into their man. But his loyalties now clearly favor Riyadh, which has always aimed to eliminate the Brotherhood as an ideological rival and a political threat.

But the irony is that al-Sharaa’s rejection of the Brotherhood does not mean he is embracing secular governance or liberal democracy. On the contrary, he is advancing a new strain of authoritarian Islamism. HTS, which controlled Idlib in Syria for a few years, was never Brotherhood, nor was it ISIS. It was neo-jihadist. Since taking power, he has granted Syrian citizenship to foreign jihadists before incorporating them into his army and police. These forces have already carried out brutal campaigns against Syrian Alawites, Druze, and Christians. Far from signaling inclusivity, his rhetoric of independence from the Brotherhood disguises the ongoing sectarian violence.

A Lesson to Remember

The lesson to remember here is that every time political Islamism seems to collapse, it returns in a more adaptive form. The Brotherhood’s fall in Egypt looked decisive, yet Hamas carried the Islamist project forward in Gaza. The defeat of ISIS was hailed as the end of jihadism, only for HTS to rise from Idlib to the presidential palace in Damascus. Today, al-Sharaa is forging something even more dangerous: a neo-Jihadism that melds the Brotherhood’s political maneuvering, the violence of al-Qaeda and ISIS, and the authoritarian pragmatism of Ba’athist socialism into a single model. This is not the end of political Islamism, but its most toxic and resilient mutation. Al-Sharaa’s rejection of the Brotherhood is not a death notice for political Islamism; it is a birth announcement for the most dangerous reinvention of jihadism.