Former jihadist and Syrian President forcefully critiques Islamist dogma, mirroring Nahdlatul Ulama’s theological analysis
“I never bound myself to the doctrines of Islamist organizations… I believe there must always be room for ijtihad — for thoughtful, independent judgment. There has to be broad intellectual flexibility. Anyone who locks themselves into rigid doctrines will struggle to reach sound conclusions.”
~ Ahmed al-Sharaa, President of the Syrian Arab Republic, in Al Jazeera interview
DAMASCUS, Syria, 2 August 2026 — President Ahmed al-Sharaa, former leader of al-Qaeda’s now-dissolved Syrian branch Jibhat al-Nusra (“Victory Front”), has sought to distance himself from jihadi and other Islamist groups, forcefully criticizing their approach to Islam as overly doctrinaire and “profoundly detached from reality.” In comments that parallel the theological critique of Islamism long articulated by Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, President al-Sharaa observed that Islamist movements’ rigid adherence to historical precedent and failure to adapt to the dynamic and ever-changing nature of contemporary reality has led Muslims to “disappointment, failure, and loss.”
President al-Sharaa’s comments reflect a broader move away from ultraconservative Sunni Islam in the Middle East and North Africa, precipitated in part by the shocking brutality and military failure of ISIS; the concomitant rise of Indonesia’s Humanitarian Islam movement, which was established in 2017 by spiritual leaders of the world’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama; and the decision by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to significantly reduce funding of Wahhabi/Muslim Brotherhood organizations worldwide.
As Mohamed Abu al-Fadl — managing editor of one of the oldest and most influential newspapers in the Arab world, Egypt’s al-Ahram (est. 1875) — observed in 2023: “Nahdlatul Ulama’s project revolves around separating politics from religion and breaking out of the mental prison of calls to establish an Islamic caliphate…. So long as the Arab world remains mired in the trench of traditional Islamic orthodoxy, we will not escape the catastrophic impact this has upon governments, nations, and the future.”
Abu al-Fadl has closely followed NU and its theological initiatives since 2015, when he declared in al-Ahram that NU is “poised to export its collective wisdom and experience throughout the world, for the benefit of humanity.”
President Joko Widodo of Indonesia addressing the 2019 National Conference of NU Religious Scholars (2019 Munas) in Banjar, West Java. Seated upon the stage is Shaykh Taufiq Ramadan al-Bouti, Chairman of the Association of Syrian Ulama, whose father — the renowned ‘alim, Shaykh Mohammed Said Ramadan al-Bouti, was assassinated in a 2013 bomb attack while lecturing in Damascus.
Nahdlatul Ulama and traditional Sunni scholars in the Levant have historically enjoyed a close relationship. Preeminent Syrian ulama attended the conferences that gave birth to the Gerakan Pemuda Ansor Declaration on Humanitarian Islam and the decree in which Nahdlatul Ulama issued the first legal rulings associated with its fiqh al-hadarah (Islamic Jurisprudence for a Global Civilization) initiative. At one of these conferences, attended by over 20,000 ulama (photo above), NU ruled that Muslims have no religious obligation to establish a caliphate; that the modern nation state is theologically legitimate; that the legal category of infidel (kafir) is not relevant within a modern nation state; and that Muslims have a religious obligation to foster peace rather than automatically wage war on behalf of their co-religionists, whenever conflict erupts between Muslim and non-Muslim populations anywhere in the world.
The conceptual foundation for these rulings was unveiled at a third international forum convened in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in October 2018 (image below). A 40-page document promulgated at this forum, the Nusantara Manifesto, draws heavily on the principles of usul al-fiqh (methodologies traditionally employed to create Islamic jurisprudence). The Nusantara Manifesto introduced the concept of fiqh al-hadarah to a global audience, delineating a theological framework whose argument anticipated and closely parallels al-Sharaa’s critique of jihadi dogma in the August 2026 Al Jazeera interview.
Part XI
Towards a Theological Framework
for the Recontextualization of Islamic Teachings
and the Reform of Problematic Tenets Within Islamic Orthodoxy§11.1
Transcendent and Historically-Contingent
Elements of Religious Orthodoxy
(Thawābit and Mutaghayyirāt)99. The majority of political conflicts within the Islamic world—and between Muslims and non-Muslims globally—stem from the Muslim world’s failure to adapt, peacefully and harmoniously, to the realities of our current world civilization.
100. One factor that contributes to this failure—indeed, perhaps the primary factor—is a dominant mindset among Muslims, which tends to view the classical orthodoxy of Islam as an unchangeable set of religious rules and guidance.
101. Those who consider Islamic teachings to be immutable are, by definition, incapable of responding to the ever-changing circumstances of life in an appropriate and effective manner. They fail to apprehend the complex nature of Islamic orthodoxy, which evolved over a number of centuries in response to divine revelation and historical—i.e., socio-cultural, political and military—circumstances encountered by Muslim communities in the broader Middle East and North Africa.
102. As the majority of ‘ulamā’ (Muslim scholars) have traditionally recognized, Islamic orthodoxy consists of both transcendent (i.e., immutable) elements (thawābit) and contingent responses to historical reality (mutaghayyirāt), which may be adapted to address and reflect the ever-changing circumstances of life.
103. In order to appreciate this analytical distinction, it is necessary to differentiate between the spiritual (i.e., essential) values of Islam and its contingent expressions, including numerous tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that emerged within the context of Islamic civilization in the Middle East.
104. The transcendent (immutable) elements of Islam include a perennial set of messages embedded within scripture as guidelines (also known as sharī‘ah) that apply to all Muslims throughout space and time. These eternal values may be described as the religion of Islam, if we wish the term religion (al-dīn) to refer to that which is noble and enduring.
105. Temporal elements within Islamic orthodoxy, on the other hand, constitute historically-determined responses to specific circumstances on the part of Muslims. These responses may be described as the historical (or civilizational) manifestation of Islam, which occurred within specific territories at specific points in time, primarily within the Arab, Persian and Turkish cultural basins, often in response to armed conflict with neighboring states and the administration of conquered territories and peoples.
106. Islamic orthodoxy contains internal mechanisms, including the science of uṣūl al-fiqh—the methodology of independent legal reasoning employed to create Islamic law, or fiqh (often conflated with sharī‘ah)—that allow Muslim scholars to adjust the temporal elements of religious orthodoxy in response to the ever-changing circumstances of life. These internal mechanisms entail a process of independent legal reasoning known as ijtihād, which fell into disuse among Sunni Muslim scholars approximately five centuries ago.
107. If Muslims are to live at peace with themselves and the modern world, it is essential that we recognize and acknowledge that the context of our current global civilization is profoundly different from that in which the religion of Islam was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him, and the circumstances in which the temporal elements of Islamic orthodoxy emerged and gradually became ossified towards the end of the medieval era.
A key vehicle for the projection of Nahdlatul Ulama’s geopolitical and theological influence worldwide is the North Carolina-based Bayt ar-Rahmah li ad-Da‘wa al-Islamiyyah Rahmatan li al-‘Alamin (Home of Divine Grace for Revealing and Nurturing Islam as a Blessing for All Creation). Established in 2014 by senior NU leaders, including KH. A. Mustofa Bisri and KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, Bayt ar-Rahmah’s programs include an Arabic-language website that enables Muslim populations in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond to readily access the full range of documents associated with NU’s Humanitarian Islam and fiqh al-hadarah initiatives.
These documents include Arabic translations of the 2016 International Summit of Moderate Islamic Leaders (ISOMIL) Nahdlatul Ulama Declaration (pictured above, with an image of NU co-founder KH. Hasyim As’yari); the 2017 Gerakan Pemuda Ansor Declaration on Humanitarian Islam; the 2018 Nusantara Manifesto; and the 2019 Bahtsul Masa’il Ad-Diniyyah Al-Maudluiyyah Decree on the Nation, Citizenship, and State Law.
During a wide-ranging, hour-long interview with journalist Ali al-Dhafiri of Al Jazeera, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said:
We have to distinguish between Islam itself and the historical experiences of Islamist movements. Those movements inevitably reflect [human] ideas, interpretations, and independent reasoning (ijtihad). Nor did those experiences produce the level of awareness I was looking for. They often relied on historical precedents without giving sufficient consideration to present-day realities. Many who invested their hopes in those movements eventually encountered disappointment, failure, and disillusionment.
For that reason, I never bound myself to the doctrines of Islamist organizations.
As a child and in my early years, those movements were simply what was available around me. Naturally, I became familiar with them and sought to understand them. But later, when I assumed greater responsibilities and reached important turning points in my life, I no longer adhered to the principles of those movements or organizations.
Instead, I tried — together with the team working alongside me — to think independently, free from the inherited intellectual framework of Islamist movements and from the influence that legacy had exerted on their conduct, particularly in the context of armed struggle.
Ali al-Dhafiri: Some people see that as one of your greatest strengths, while others regard it as a betrayal of your earlier beliefs — as though Ahmed al-Sharaa abandoned the ideas he once believed in. What drove that change?
Ahmed al-Sharaa: I believe there are universal principles that should never change: serving people, protecting them, resisting injustice, and defending the oppressed. These are values that Islam encourages, and, indeed, values upheld by all major religions.
But turning a particular set of human ideas into a fixed path…
Ali al-Dhafiri: …as though they were sacred.
Ahmed al-Sharaa: Exactly — as though they possessed the same authority as divine religious teachings or immutable tradition. I don’t believe that.
I believe there must always be room for ijtihad — for thoughtful, independent judgment. There has to be broad intellectual flexibility. Anyone who locks themselves into rigid doctrines will struggle to reach sound conclusions, because events unfold rapidly, circumstances are constantly changing, and every new situation demands careful analysis on its own terms.
At the same time, one should possess a strong ethical framework — moral restraints that prevent aggression and govern conduct even in conflict and war.
But to remain bound to ideas written a century ago — or ideas that in some cases failed even in the environments where they originated [a thousand years ago] — and then to treat them as though they were binding religious commandments… I simply do not believe in that approach.
President al-Sharaa’s critique of jihadi and other Islamist groups reflects a broader trend in the Arab world, amidst the failure of political Islam in the wake of the Arab Spring and the loss of support from key governments, particularly that of Saudi Arabia. It is reasonable to view his comments with skepticism, given President al-Sharaa’s historic ties to the leadership of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq, the precursor to ISIS. Indeed, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, then-leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and later self-proclaimed caliph of ISIS, approved and funded al-Sharaa’s mission to establish a Syrian branch in 2011.
As President of Syria, al-Sharaa continues to rely on fighters with jihadist backgrounds, including foreign contingents from Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Jordan, Turkey, and Albania, who have been implicated in large-scale sectarian massacres of Syria’s Alawite and Druze populations. After relying on the support of foreign jihadists during his years of struggle with the Assad regime, al-Sharaa finds himself riding a tiger as he confronts a wide range of internal and external threats.
Nevertheless, al-Sharaa’s comments reflect a profound recognition — at least rhetorically — of what al-Ahram’s Abu al-Fadl describes as a “spiritual void” within the Arab world, in the wake of the failure of both Arab nationalist and Islamist movements. Significantly, Abu al-Fadl regards Nahdlatul Ulama and its fiqh al-hadarah initiative as a much-needed alternative to these failed ideologies.
The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus contains a shrine traditionally believed to house the head of John the Baptist (known in Islam as Yahya or Yahya ibn Zakariya), a figure revered as a prophet in both Christianity and Islam
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Excerpts from President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Al Jazeera Interview