Some Legal Aspects of the Situation of the Syrian Christians during the Presidency of Bashar Asad (2000–2024)Христианство на Ближнем ВостокеSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/S3P6CSKQ/tei
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2025-05-20-05:00
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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.Timofey A.BokovElizaveta M.BokovaSome Legal Aspects of the Situation of the Syrian Christians during the Presidency of Bashar Asad (2000–2024)http://syriaca.org/cbss/S3P6CSKQhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/S3P6CSKQhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/S3P6CSKQХристианство на Ближнем Востоке8:420245-17This article clarifies a number of established historiographic ideas about the legal status of Christians in the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR) in the recent period based on a substantive analysis of the SAR’s legislation, as well as field interviews with Syrian Christians conducted by one of the authors of the article. It’s concluded that Syrian Muslims had a number of preferences over representatives of other religions in the political and legal spheres, arising from the provisions of the SAR Constitution. A thesis is put forward that the secular authorities of Syria during the period of independence failed, due to the strong pressure from the Sunni part of the society, to get rid of the prevalence of features of typically Muslim rule, which go back to the influential concept of regulating the position of non-Muslims in an Islamic state developed by influential medieval jurist Abu al-Hasan al-Mawardi. It is stated that the Asad’s model of governing religious minorities essentially reproduced the Ottoman millet system, which provided the country’s non-Muslim communities with fairly broad opportunities for selfgovernment. It is noted that in the public sphere, Christians, despite the existing restrictions, enjoyed a fairly wide range of freedoms — from opportunity to freely demonstrate religious feelings to the right to run their own religious educational institutions. It is concluded that this policy of checks and balances was carried out by the Syrian state in order to maintain interreligious balance in the face of intensified Islamic radicalism. At the same time, Christians themselves, aware of the restrictions imposed on them, nevertheless saw in the Baath Party rule a guarantee of their own well-being against the background of anti-Christian sentiments among the radical part of the Sunni community.
Bokov, Timofey A., and Elizaveta M. Bokova. “Some Legal Aspects of the Situation of the Syrian Christians during the Presidency of Bashar Asad (2000–2024).” Христианство на Ближнем Востоке 8:4 (2024): 5–17. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.24412/2587-9316-2024-0170.
Timofey A. Bokov and Elizaveta M. Bokova, Some Legal Aspects of the Situation of the Syrian Christians during the Presidency of Bashar Asad (2000–2024),Христианство на Ближнем Востоке 8:4 (2024): 5–17, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.24412/2587-9316-2024-0170.