May 14, 2021
The Islamic Republic ap-pears to have launched a major campaign to convert Syrian Sunnis to Shiites, sometimes by bribery and sometimes by coercion, Foreign Policy magazine says.
Over the last few years, as the military conflict has subsided, Iran has expanded its cultural influence in Syria to encourage Sunnis to convert to Shiism or at the very least soften their attitudes toward their sectarian rivals.
Foreign Policy spoke to recent converts and their friends inside regime-held Syria who said that the economic collapse in Syria made it hard to ignore the perks Iran offered.
Iran is handing out cash to needy Syrians, along with a heavy dose of indoctrination in religious seminaries, scholarships to children to study in Iranian universities, free health care, food baskets, and trips to tourist spots to encourage conversion. Such small measures are not cost-intensive but could go a long way in influencing the view of Iran among impoverished Syrians.
Iran has restored old shrines and built new ones to revered Shiite figures, almost as if trying to rewrite the religious history of Syria, which is majority-Sunni and had a very small Shiite population before the war.
Around a dozen locals, activists, and Syrian analysts told Foreign Policy that Iran is trying to present itself as a benign power to cultivate long-term support among Sunni Syrians, with the final objective of retaining its sphere of influence and exercising control through proxies, as in Lebanon and Iraq.
Ahmad, 24, who spoke with the magazine on condition of anonymity, is one of the newest members of the Shiite community in Syria. He lived in Mayadeen, a town on the border with Iraq in Deir Ezzor governorate in eastern Syria, but fled to Bab near Turkey with his family during the conflict. He returned in 2018 when his friend told him that all his worries could end if he joined an Iranian militia. A Sunni, he joined the Sayyidah Zaynab battalions, named after the granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammed and daughter of Imam Ali, the patriarch of Shiites.
“My friend in al-Mayadeen said I could come back and join the Iranians and nobody would hurt me or my family,” Ahmad told Foreign Policy from Set Zaynab, a town that is home to the shrine of Sayyidah Zaynab six miles south of Damascus and completely under the occupation of Iran-backed militias.
Ahmad works as a guard at the shrine and gets paid 100,000 Syrian pounds (around $200) a month, but he needed more cash to pay for his father’s kidney dialysis twice a month. In February, the leader of his militia offered to double his pay if he converted to Shiism himself. Ahmad agreed at once.
“Recently we had a meeting with our militia leader, who said we would be promoted and get money if we converted to Shiism and just listened to some lectures at Sayyidah Zaynab,” he told Foreign Policy. “I said yes along with 20 other men because all of us need money. If I am Shiite I will be paid 200,000 Syrian pounds. I really need the money because of my father’s treatment. I don’t care about religion.”
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitor, Iran recently invited the people of Mayadeen to the Nour Iranian Cultural Center to attend a course on the principles and doctrines of Shiism. At the end of the course, all who pass a test would be given money, about 100,000 Syrian pounds, and a food basket.
Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat currently in exile in the United States, said the Iranian presence and activities have sown the seeds of a future insurgency in his country. “There are bound to be clashes to oppose the Persian invasion,” Barabandi said.
“First, the Iranians and Hezbollah went to Alawite-dominated Latakia. But the Alawites are an open society when it comes to religion and social norms. For instance, they like their drink. Alawites told the Iranians goodbye and good luck. Iranians found it easier to manipulate Syrians worst affected by the war and hence the expansion in areas formerly held by the Islamic State.”