Religious authority and political commitment : Syrian Sunni Ulama in revolution and war – with Thomas Pierret

The ERC LIVE-AR project team is pleased to announce the sixth session of the monthly seminar series « Militant Pathways and Political Crises » . It will take place on March 12th 2024, from 2pm to 4pm (CET – Paris time). Our speaker will be Thomas Pierret (CNRS, IREMAM), who will present a lecture entitled « Religious authority and political commitment : Syrian Sunni Ulama in revolution and war ».

The session will take place at the Institut de recherches et d’études sur les mondes arabes et musulmans (IREMAM) in Aix-en-Provence and on Zoom, in French only.

Session Summary

Thomas Pierret’s presentation will examine the 2011 revolution and the ensuing war, which were a major factor in the mobility of Sunni Muslims in Syria. This mobility manifested itself in three main ways: firstly, in a literal sense, through the emigration, notably to Turkey, of a substantial proportion of the country’s religious elites; secondly, through career reorientations such as more or less successful forays into the political and/or military fields; thirdly, through the rise of those who were able to take advantage of the upheavals of the past decade to strengthen their stature within the religious field. Combining biographical illustrations and prosopographical reflection, this presentation will examine the specific nature of the trajectories of actors entering the field of political commitment, or leaving it, while already occupying an elite position in another social field, in this case religious.