The management of religious law and police by HTS in the Idlib region between 2017 and 2024

Abstract

This paper analyses the religious policy of the leader of HTS, Al Jolani, in his fiefdom of Idlib, during the 8 years following the creation of the movement. Before that, Jolani was a jihadi leader among others in Syria. But after 2017, he delegated some power to local institutions and notables, mainly religious clerics. Most of them were salafis and pushed for a strict application of sharia, particularly concerning women: they opposed gender mixing and public entertainment. Jolani on the contrary, decided to dissolve the religious, to keep the University gender-mixed and not to implement some of the sharia-based punishments proposed by the clerics. The paper analyses these tensions in detail and try to fathom what could be the approach of sharia by HTS which is now in charge in Damascus.