Ahmad al-Sharaa Is Building the State Abu Mohammed al-Golani Promised

Editor’s Note: In some ways, Syria has changed radically under the leadership of former jihadist Ahmad al-Sharaa, who has renounced terrorism and is open to working with the United States and some of its regional allies. H9 Defense’s Sara Harmouch, however, argues that the governing system Sharaa is building continues the authoritarian, Sunni-dominant structure he promoted during his jihadist days. She suggests that countries engaging with Syria risk reinforcing the regime’s undemocratic nature.

Daniel Byman

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For more than a year, debate over Syria’s post-Assad transition has revolved around a single question: Has Ahmad al-Sharaa changed? Once known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the former leader of al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate carried a $10 million U.S. bounty for his arrest and built a reputation as one of the Syrian war’s most disciplined jihadist commanders. He now governs from the presidential palace rather than the battlefield, presenting himself as a pragmatic statesman and promising unity, order, religious tolerance, and national reconciliation.

Sharaa has undeniably altered Syria’s external posture in ways that matter to Washington. Formal ties to al-Qaeda have been severed, and Sharaa’s movement no longer claims transnational ambitions. Engagement with Gulf states and Western governments has expanded. The new leadership has even signaled willingness to cooperate on counterterrorism (though Sharaa’s efforts have so far not been successful) and regional stability. For policymakers prioritizing transnational terrorism, these shifts are significant. They mark a departure from Golani’s earlier position and reflect pragmatic adaptation to international realities.

Personal reinvention, however, is not the same as institutional transformation. Leaders can recalibrate language and adjust tone to meet diplomatic realities. Public messaging shifts with circumstance. What is more difficult to alter is a governing framework once publicly defined—especially when ideas Golani advanced as a jihadist leader can now be tested against the institutions emerging under Sharaa’s presidency. The more consequential question is structural: Does the governing system consolidating in Damascus reflect a break from Golani’s earlier framework, or its realization?

The evidence points to continuity. Before assuming formal state authority, Golani outlined a political order grounded in religious legitimacy, hierarchical inclusion, and phased consolidation. Today, executive authority is concentrated, religious oversight is embedded in lawmaking, and security institutions are structured around ideological alignment. Alternative centers of sovereignty are absorbed or dismantled. Syria’s trajectory becomes clear when measured against the institutional framework its current president articulated as a jihadist years before taking office. What Golani once described as an insurgent now operates through state institutions.

Golani’s Theory of Rule

When he operated under the name Abu Mohammed al-Golani, Sharaa did not present himself as a revolutionary seeking to abolish the state. He framed his project as constructing the right kind of state. In a 2013 interview, Golani said that his movement did not seek to rule Syria alone, but that the postwar order would be shaped through “consultations with Muslim scholars” to produce “a plan for running the country according to Sharia.” He was explicit about the hierarchy of legitimacy: Once Syria was “freed,” “legitimate committees will convene,” councils of “people of authority and influence” would develop a governing plan in “accordance with Islamic Sharia law,” and “the rule of God’s law will prevail.”

For Golani, legitimacy did not rest on popular consent, plural representation, or constitutional neutrality. It rested on ideological compliance. “We will accept any ruler, regardless of who he is,” he said, “as long as he adheres to the principles of Islamic law.” He also envisioned an army governed by Islamic Shura, trained “on the basis of jihadist ideology,” and disciplined through religious authority.

This framework also defined who belonged. Minorities were not citizens with equal standing under a common legal order. They were communities whose safety depended on meeting conditions set by the ruling authority. Discussing the Alawites, he insisted his campaign was “not a matter of revenge,” yet underscored that “in Islam, they are considered … heretics,” repeatedly qualifying that restraint applied only “at this time.” Protection was never unconditional. It was tied to behavior, repentance, and theological correction; Alawites could be spared if they surrendered and “repented,” abandoning beliefs deemed incompatible with Islam.

His treatment of the Druze followed the same logic. He promised, “We will not hurt them or target them,” while simultaneously describing the dispatch of du‘at—religious emissaries—to “correct their ideological deviations.” Minority status, he explained, would be adjudicated. Minorities would have “obligations and rights,” and “each sect will be presented individually according to the Quran and Sunnah” to determine “where each of them stands.” Inclusion would be hierarchical and revocable.

Crucially, Golani framed this order as phased. Restraint was temporary and authority would be consolidated in sequence. He repeatedly emphasized that steps could not be “jumped” before the appropriate moment. In one interview, he described a structured campaign plan, beginning with security branches, moving to military structures, and culminating in the elimination of “ruling heads.” Even his calls for ceasefires and Islamic courts amid rebel infighting fit this logic. Courts were not a concession to pluralism, but a mechanism to centralize authority under religious adjudication.

Taken together, these elements amount to a coherent theory of rule in which Sharia is the ultimate source of legitimacy, minority inclusion is conditioned on compliance, the government rejects plural political sovereignty, and consolidation occurs through sequencing.

From Jihadist Doctrine to State Design

What Golani articulated as insurgent doctrine would later acquire institutional form under Sharaa. The concepts he espoused previously—religious councils, ideological vetting, Sharia as final arbiter—now structure the Syrian state. His name changed; his governing architecture did not.

The composition of the new government makes that continuity visible. Sharaa has staffed the core of the state with figures drawn overwhelmingly from his own movement and its predecessors, translating into ministerial authority the same narrow circle of legitimacy he once described as Syria’s rightful stewards. Senior Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) commanders control defense, internal security, intelligence, and justice, while loyalists from the HTS-run Salvation Government in Idlib occupy civilian ministries.

This consolidation is clearest at the top of the state. Minority inclusion, where it exists, is largely symbolic and does not extend into the security apparatus or institutions that determine the use of force. Sunnis hold 18 of 23 cabinet positions, while Christians, Alawites, Druze, and Kurds are largely absent from institutions that command force or shape security policy. To the extent that minority representation exists, it is limited to less powerful portfolios. An Alawite serves as transportation minister, a Druze heads the Agriculture Ministry, a Christian was appointed minister of social affairs and labor, and a Kurd was named minister of education. None of these posts controls coercive authority. The three most powerful posts—defense minister, chief of staff, and head of intelligence—are held by Sunni figures closely tied to Sharaa’s network.

The interim constitution and the Fatwa Council formalize this model. The constitution consolidates power in the presidency, preserves the requirement that the head of state be Muslim, and designates Islamic jurisprudence as the principal source of legislation. Article 3 of the Constitutional Declaration states plainly that “Islamic jurisprudence is the principal source of legislation,” subordinating statutory law to religious authority and codifying the hierarchy Golani previously expressed.

Judicial oversight follows the same pattern. Article 47 provides that the seven members of the Supreme Constitutional Court are appointed by the president, extending executive influence to the body responsible for constitutional review. As Syrian journalist Alia Mansour observed, “All powers are in the hands of the President … there is no true separation of powers.”

The Fatwa Council inserts clerical oversight directly into the legislative process. It reviews laws for conformity with Islamic law, effectively embedding a religious veto. Its all-Sunni composition reflects the governing principle that political authority is legitimate only within an approved religious framework. Together, these mechanisms route law through executive control and clerical supervision, centralizing authority within a religiously defined order.

This model extends beyond constitutional design into daily governance. Religious norms are enforced administratively, including restrictions on women’s appearance in public employment. During Ramadan, the interim Ministry of Religious Endowments reportedly ordered the closure of restaurants, cafés, and street food vendors during daylight hours. Although no formal government decree was issued, public eating or drinking was reportedly punishable by up to three months in jail.

Nowhere is this institutionalization clearer than in the reconstruction of Syria’s security apparatus. Reports indicate that new army recruits undergo compulsory Sharia instruction, police training integrates Islamic jurisprudence and religious codes of conduct alongside weapons handling, and application processes assess candidates’ “beliefs, orientations, and perspectives.” Foreign jihadists have been promoted to senior positions within the new army and security services. Several commanders and militias previously accused by the United States and United Nations of serious human rights abuses now hold senior posts. Integration has prioritized ideologically aligned Sunni factions while excluding Kurdish forces, secular militias, and Western-backed actors, mirroring Golani’s earlier rejection of actors “brought by the West.” Religious alignment, rather than citizenship or institutional neutrality, functions as the threshold for inclusion.

The result is a security sector defined less by national representation than by doctrinal coherence. Loyalty is cultivated through shared religious training and reinforced through ideological screening. When institutions are structured this way, coercion does not require constant direction from the top; it is embedded in organizational design. Communities associated with disfavored identities encounter surveillance and pressure not as episodic excess, but as a predictable institutional outcome.

That same structuring logic carries operational consequences. Following government operations against Kurdish-led forces, thousands of detainees escaped from al-Hol detention camp, including family members of Islamic State fighters. Syrian officials acknowledged that large numbers absconded during the transition of control. Sharaa’s government has demonstrated willingness to cooperate with the United States on counterterrorism. Yet external cooperation does not eliminate internal constraints. The Pentagon assessed that Damascus’s efforts are “limited by a lack of trained, qualified personnel, and the nascent state of security institutions.” These constraints reflect structural choices. A security sector built around ideological alignment, staffed in part by officials with militant backgrounds, and organized through religious vetting is not optimized for effective counterterrorism performance. Incorporating ideologically aligned foreign factions into core security roles may consolidate loyalty, but it can weaken, rather than strengthen, counterterrorism capacity.

Governing Minorities Under Hierarchical Rule

In the new Syria, minorities are not treated as equal citizens within a neutral legal order, but as managed populations whose protection is conditional and revocable. As a jihadist leader, Golani made this hierarchy explicit. Alawites, he said, were “considered heretics.” Protection applied only “at this time” and only to those who complied. Even an Alawite who had “killed a thousand of us” could be spared, but only through repentance and theological abandonment. His description of the Druze was similar: protection offered publicly, religious correction pursued administratively.

That hierarchy now interacts with the constitutional structure. Article 23 guarantees rights and freedoms but permits their restriction on grounds including “national security, public order, and public morals.” These broad limitation clauses create a legal pathway through which unequal enforcement can be framed as order maintenance rather than discrimination.

In practice, minority communities continue to face exclusion, surveillance, coercion, violence, and marginalization. In Alawite areas, identity functions as a proxy for suspicion, with security operations relying on collective association rather than individual conduct. Raids and detentions are justified through presumed loyalty to the former regime and religious otherness. In Suwayda, violence against the Druze followed government pressure and were not simply instances of spontaneous unrest; reports of these extrajudicial killings triggered armed resistance by Druze. When Druze civilians were killed in 2015, Golani’s group pledged accountability through an Islamic court while insisting the community “remained under our protection.” A decade later, similar assurances accompanied violence in Suwayda, yet accountability remains weak and justice elusive.

The Kurdish case marks the outer boundary of this system. Most Syrian Kurds are Sunni Muslims, but their difference is not primarily sectarian. The issue is not theology but sovereignty. Unlike Alawites or Druze, whose status can be managed within a hierarchical religious framework, Kurdish actors exercised autonomous governance. Through the Syrian Democratic Forces and civilian administrations, they built an alternative political order combining territorial control, armed forces, and political structures independent of Sunni Islamist legitimacy and Damascus’s authority. The interim constitution provides mechanisms for dismantling that autonomy. Article 9 prohibits non-state armed militias, while the concentration of executive authority under Articles 24 and 39 facilitates the subordination of competing institutions to the presidential structure.

Golani anticipated precisely such a challenge to the government’s sovereignty. He outlined a phased strategy culminating in the removal of “ruling heads,” a direct rejection of alternative centers of authority. Kurdish-led governance fell squarely within that category. Since 2025, military pressure, negotiated surrenders, administrative absorption, and displacement have steadily eroded that autonomy. At least 134,000 Kurds have been displaced. Ceasefire and integration agreements have transferred authority and security control to the central state.

Jihadist movements that derive legitimacy from ideological conformity treat pluralism not as competition but as structural risk. In Syria’s current phase, the principal targets are internal obstacles to consolidation: autonomous institutions, communities deemed suspect, and social arrangements that dilute centralized authority. The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan followed a similar arc. Initial restraint gave way to systematic enforcement once consolidation advanced. In both cases, the inward turn signaled entrenchment, not instability.

Conclusion

The state now taking shape in Syria is the institutional expression of a governing theory articulated long before Sharaa exchanged the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani for the title of president. The state Golani promised is, in substance, the state Sharaa is building.

Syria’s trajectory under Sharaa therefore raises questions that extend beyond political analysis into the domain of law and international responsibility. Governments considering normalization or sanctions relief must assess not whether Sharaa’s rhetoric has moderated, but whether Syria’s institutional framework aligns with international legal obligations, including nondiscrimination, due process, and the protection of religious and ethnic minorities.