The Syrian Future Movement and Professor Jawdat Said.

On the second anniversary of his death, I assert that I was among the few who had the honor of visiting the home of Professor Dr. Jawdat Said, may God have mercy on him, in Istanbul. Since the early years of the Syrian revolution, I was keen to sit with him, listen to him, and learn from him. I deliberately asked him about issues that required decisions within the Syrian Future movement. He, may God have mercy on him, intentionally taught me the principle of mapping out and defining the landscape without giving a direct, explicit answer. It was as if he wanted us to act according to our understanding and perception of events and changes (while ensuring not to deviate from the general framework characterized by his thought, pen, and doctrine).

My relationship with Dr. Jawdat Said was not recent or a coincidence! It was my father, Dr. Sheikh Ihssan Baadarani, who took us to visit him in his home in his village of Bir Ajam. For decades, Dr. Jawdat Said would ascend the pulpit of the Marabut Mosque and his teaching chair, invited directly by my esteemed father. Dr. Jawdat possessed a unique charm that captivated listeners with his facial expressions and body language. His distinctive attire and the thoughtfulness and determination in his eyes were unmistakable to his followers.

I remained in constant contact with him, may God have mercy on him, after our departure from Syria in 2011, through his dear daughter, Ms. Kawthar Jawdat Said, until God Almighty took him. Last year, I attended his memorial at the Circassian Association in Istanbul, where I had the opportunity to meet his loved ones and obtain some of his books and writings.

Here, I am pleased to convey what I read on my friend Dr. Amir Nasher al-Naam’s Facebook page, which I personally resonate with. He said:

“Dostoevsky once said in his novel ‘The Adolescent’: ‘Youth is pure and untainted simply because it is youth.’ This saying was embodied in Jawdat Said in his youth, adulthood, old age, and until the moment his death was announced in Istanbul on the morning of Sunday, January 30, 2022. People in the East and West mourned him, and his students and admirers from various currents and directions remembered him with many titles, including: the teacher, the advocate of knowledge and peace, the theorist of nonviolence, the pioneer of peaceful struggle, the great educator, and the Islamic thinker, among others. Some wrote, to prevent people from being deceived by these descriptions, about his intellectual and doctrinal deviations and the aberration and misguidance of some of his theses. A third group refrained from directly branding him with disbelief and misguidance but quoted some of his statements out of context, questioning them in a disapproving manner, leaving the task of declaring him heretic or infidel to the comments of their readers and followers. Many of these individuals openly stated that they had not read his books or met him personally, but this did not prevent them from weaving cocoons of doubt about him and trivializing his views and statements with levity and disregard over his shrouded body, which had just closed its eyes to this world.

During his lifetime, Jawdat Said did not receive positive recognition from most Syrian sheikhs. They either ignored him or devalued his ideas and his call. They said: he is not a man of thought, but a man of an idea. An idea they did not agree with, did not savor, and did not attempt to understand or approach! The differences between him and the rest of the sheikhs were fundamental, especially in rhythm! His presence among them caused a confusion that was unmistakable to the eye and ear, like a deaf percussionist in a harmonious and synchronized orchestra, beating his instrument in a context outside the performance of the band, immersing himself in that beating so much that it took him out of the bounds of his existence, let alone the bounds of the musical band that could not at all comprehend this deviation that disrupted its purity and harmony.”

May God have mercy on Professor Dr. Jawdat Said. We, in the Syrian Future Movement, are committed to his general approach and methodology as one of the founders of the “Nonviolent Islam” theory.