This investigation documents the trajectory of Ahmad Badr al-Din Hassoun, Syria's former Grand Mufti, from the head of the official religious establishment to the dock on charges of incitement to murder and crimes against humanity. It traces how the country's highest religious office became an instrument for lending legitimacy to the deposed regime's security and military choices throughout the years of the Syrian revolution.
Origins and Religious Formation
Ahmad Badr al-Din Hassoun was born in the city of Aleppo in 1949 and received his religious education at the historic Khusruwiyah School, one of the oldest religious institutions in the city. He then moved to Egypt, where he obtained a university degree in Arabic language from Al-Azhar University before earning a doctorate in Shafi'i jurisprudence from the same institution. That path formed the symbolic capital on which he later drew in assuming the highest official religious post in the country.
Ascent in the Shadow of Power
Hassoun assumed the office of Grand Mufti of the Republic in 2005, succeeding Ahmad Kaftaru, becoming the official face of the religious establishment in Syria. From that point his name was associated with close relations with the Syrian security and intelligence services. With the outbreak of the revolution in 2011 he adopted the deposed regime's narrative as soon as the protests began, classifying the popular movement as a "foreign conspiracy" targeting the stability of the country, a characterisation that accompanied his rhetoric in the years that followed.
Religious Cover for Policies of Repression
Hassoun used his position to issue religious rulings supporting the security option. He called for not fighting the regime army and considered joining it a religious duty, and he attacked Syrian refugees, describing them as "servants" and "paid killers". He also justified the Russian military presence in Syria and considered it support rather than occupation, describing the Russian intervention as backing for states against what he called "terrorism", making the fatwa a direct extension of the official position.
The Pulpit in the Service of the Barracks
Hassoun formulated an ideological framework that made the religious fatwa subordinate to the decision of the state in wartime. He held that confronting the revolutionaries fell under the concept of repelling internal chaos, transferring political disagreement into the field of religious rulings. In the regional extension he presented Iran as an essential part of the axis of resistance in Syria, and justified the Iranian intervention as tied to protecting the resistance project rather than as involvement in an internal conflict.
Regional Cover Under the Cloak of Resistance
The same justification extended to Hezbollah, which Hassoun described as part of the axis of resistance confronting Israel, praising its role in supporting the deposed regime during the years of the Syrian revolution. He linked the presence of the party on Syrian soil to confronting what he called "terrorism" and protecting the entity of the state, and considered it a strategic supporting force rather than foreign interference in Syrian affairs, which stripped the armed presence of the character of intervention.
The End of the Jurisprudence of Justification
After the fall of the Assad regime, Hassoun was arrested while attempting to leave Syria in 2025, then referred to the judiciary, with actual trial proceedings beginning in 2026. The indictment included incitement to murder and crimes against humanity. Judicial proceedings remain ongoing to rule on the charges attributed to him. The trial places the official religious establishment before an open question about the limits of responsibility when the pulpit becomes an instrument in the hands of power.
