Symbols of the State in Syria (5) Ibrahim Hanano
- Ibrahim Hanano, Abu Tariq, was born in the town of Kafr Takharim in Idlib province.
- He grew up in a wealthy family, his father Suleiman Agha, one of Kafr Takharim’s wealthiest men, and his mother was the daughter of Hajj Ali al-Sarma, a notable resident of Kafr Takharim.
- He completed primary school in Kafr Takharim, then moved to Aleppo, where he completed high school.
- Ibrahim took four thousand gold liras from his father without his knowledge to study at the Sultanate University in Astana, and returned home after four years.
- He left again for Istanbul to finish his law studies after another three years.
- While working in Istanbul, he married a girl from Erzurum, with whom he had his daughter Nebaht, and twelve years after her birth, he had his son Tariq.
- His wife died fifteen days after the birth of his son Tarek.
- After finishing his studies, he was appointed director of a district on the outskirts of Istanbul for three years and married there.
- After the term expired, he was appointed to the Erzurum district, where he remained for four years.
- He was then appointed investigative judge in Kafr Takharim, where he remained for nearly three years.
- He was elected as a member of Aleppo’s board of directors for a four-year term.
- He was then appointed head of the State Diwan for two years, when Rashid Talei’a was governor of Aleppo.
- He was elected as a representative of the city of Aleppo in the General Syrian Congress in Damascus in the session (1919-1920).
- After the Battle of Maysaloun, the French divided Northern Syria into five states (the State of Damascus, the State of Aleppo, the State of the Alawite Mountain, the State of Greater Lebanon, and the State of the Druze Mountain), with the Mandate authorities appointing Subhi al-Hadidi as head of the State of Aleppo, instead of Hanano.
- In late 1919, a meeting was held in the house of Idlib mayor Omar Zaki al-Afyouni, chaired by Hanano, to organize the affairs of the revolution, and it was agreed that he would be chosen to form Arab forces in the form of bands of mujahideen to occupy the French who occupied the city of Antioch, which was under the control of Azza Hanano, Ibrahim’s brother, who had to surrender the city on the orders of the Arab government in Syria.
- Hanano gathered the furniture of his house and burned it, announcing the beginning of the revolution and saying his famous phrase: “I don’t want furniture in a colonized country.
- The first armed clash between the revolutionaries and the French forces was on October 23, 1919, where the fighting lasted about seven hours.
- Hanano set up a revolutionary court for anyone who dealt with France or offended the revolution.
- Hanano became so popular that his daughter asked for five heads of French soldiers as her dowry.
- Prince Faisal signed the Mandate Treaty with France in 1920, which was rejected by many Syrians, and Hanano’s situation after a while became difficult due to his urgent need for weapons and equipment.
- He had to turn to his friends in Turkey for help.
- The number of confrontations with the French that he led himself amounted to twenty-seven battles.
- In the Battle of Mazraat al-Sijri, he captured French soldiers and recaptured large areas from French control, including his birthplace, Kafr Takharim.
- The French entered Damascus and then Aleppo to suppress the revolt, and Hanano and his forces took refuge in Jabal al-Zawiya.
- Many joined him, allowing him to establish a military base and make the area his headquarters.
- His followers nicknamed him “al-Mutawakkil al-Allah” for saying “We have relied on God” whenever he went with his troops to raid the French.
- He moved his command area to Jabal al-Arbaeen, and his following grew rapidly after his victories over the French.
- Hanano proclaimed the state of Aleppo and established an independent government under his administration.
- Negotiations began between him and the French, and Hanano conditioned the start of negotiations on stopping the movement of French troops.
- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk signed an agreement with France and stopped his aid to the Syrian rebels, weakening Hanano’s position in the negotiations.
- The French insisted that the state he demanded in the areas subject to his revolution (Idlib, Harem, Jisr al-Shughour, Antioch) be bound by military ties with the French, which Hanano rejected.
- Hanano was sentenced to four death sentences in absentia by the French Military Criminal Court.
- With the French controlling the roads, and the lack of military support, he was forced in 1921 to leave his strongholds to the south, where he tried to negotiate with Sharif Abdullah.
- On the way to Transjordan, he was ambushed near Jabal al-Shaar near Hama on July 16, 1921, in the battle of Maksar al-Hassan, where he lost most of those with him.
- He escaped with his life, and his revolution was put down.
- Hanano’s political aspirations were not suitable for Sharif Abdullah, and the meeting did not take place, so Hanano continued on his way to Jerusalem, where he was arrested by the British on August 13, 1921, and handed over to the French.
- He was brought before the French Military Criminal Court on charges of disturbing security and committing criminal acts, and the trial held its first session on 16 Rajab 1340 AH, corresponding to March 15, 1922 AD, under tight security measures.
- Fathallah al-Saqal, Aleppo’s most prominent lawyer, argued in Hanano’s defense, showing that the charge was false because Hanano was a political opponent and not a criminal, as evidenced by the fact that the French agreed to negotiate with him twice and signed a truce with him.
- One of the stories of his historic trial is when the head of the military martial law council said to Hanano: “The Syrian people did not ask you to declare a revolution. Without the president’s permission, Saadallah al-Jabri stood up and said, “We are the ones who asked leader Hanano to fight you, and we will not give up fighting you, as long as there is one patriot in us, until you leave our country.”
- On March 25, 1922, the French prosecutor asked the court to execute him, saying, “If Hanano had seven heads, I would cut them all off.”
- The French judge released Hanano as a legitimate political revolution, declaring the independence of the French judiciary from the military.
- After the trial ended and Hanano was released, Al-Saqal tried to get Hanano in to thank the president of the court for the acquittal, but the president apologized for receiving Hanano in his office, saying: “I do not shake hands with a man whose hands are stained with French blood: I do not shake hands with a man whose hands are stained with the blood of the French, when I was on the bench, but now I am a French citizen.
- Hanano became the leader of the national movement in northern Syria.
- In 1928, he was appointed head of the Constitution Committee in the Constituent Assembly to draft the Syrian constitution, but the French High Commissioner sought to disrupt the Constituent Assembly and the constitution, which led to demonstrations demanding the implementation of the provisions of the constitution.
- In 1932, at the National Bloc Conference, Ibrahim Hanano was elected as the leader of the National Bloc.
- In 1933, Hanano played a role in the resignation of the government of Haqi Bey al-Azm, due to its intention to approve the French treaty.
- In September 1933, a person named Niyazi Al-Koussa shot Hanano while he was in his village, but the bullets hit his foot. Al-Koussa was arrested in Antakya and sentenced to ten years in prison, but the French High Commissioner issued a special amnesty for Al-Koussa, which led everyone to believe that the French had something to do with the assassination.
- Due to his many movements between the mountains without shelter or protection from the weather, Hanano contracted tuberculosis, and his disease became chronic, and he died from it on Thursday, November 21, 1935.
- He was prayed for at the Umayyad Mosque in Aleppo. – The first to be informed of the news was his comrade Saadallah al-Jabri, who initiated his obituary to the men of the National Bloc, kings, princes, ministers, and senior Arab figures, and the muezzins in the mosques and the bells in the churches rang out, mourning the nation for its leader and man, Ibrahim Hanano.
- On Saturday, November 14, the great martyr was laid to rest in a massive funeral, the likes of which the country has never seen before.
- The funeral was attended by delegations from various Arab countries and Syrian provinces.
- After the body was laid to rest, orators and poets raced to eulogize the deceased, including Fares al-Khoury, Sabri al-Asali, Abdul Rahman Kayyali, and poet Omar Abu Risha.
- The National Bloc then called for a large memorial ceremony held in Damascus on January 10, 1936, at the Syrian University amphitheater, attended by delegations from various Arab countries, and the speeches and telegrams of kings, princes, ministers, and patriots were read.
- Several popular songs and poems about him appeared, including
a poem by the poet Badawi al-Jabal:
Abu Tariq fell asleep after his sleep.
Abu Tariq fell asleep after his sleep.
He left worry and affliction for those who slept.
A light from the sickness, the storms of truth, waves and foam.
If he is aroused, he shakes off his pains
as the lion escapes from his snares.
In his eyeballs there is a lightning of wonder
and a genius of magic is the only one.
- A popular song sung by children has spread in Syria, including:
A plane flew by air, there is a military, there is a light, there is Ibrahim Hanano, riding on the back of a horse, O France, daughter of the dog, who told you to come to war, when you saw Syria, you started howling like a dog.
- Every Syrian governorate has a main street named after Ibrahim Hanano.
- On March 31, 2015, Jabhat al-Nusra destroyed the statue of Ibrahim Hanano in the city of Idlib.
We at Syrian Future Movement, as we recall the memory of the founding statesmen of Syria, we recall one of the men of independence and one of the symbols of the flags of the first Syrian state, H.E. Ibrahim Hanano, in a sequential file that we present to you to include symbols and flags of the Syrian state, in order to link our contemporary revolutionary present to a solid past and historical stations, hoping to revive in our people the need to build and create statesmen par excellence, to preserve the country, safeguard the gains, and restore the Syrian state to its glory and glory, after years of oppression, tyranny and corruption.
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