Organisationally secular: Damascene Islamist movements and the Syrian Uprising

Two Islamist movements predominantly active in Damascus, the Kaftariyya and the Qubaysiyyat, are analysed in this chapter. The analysis focuses on the distinct organizational features of these movements and how these have, over time, shaped the way in which they interacted with the Syrian regime and the Syrian Uprising. To further elucidate the findings, the analysis makes use of interviews with the late Muhammad Bashir al-Bani (1911–2008), Kaftaru’s right hand and spiritual successor, that are here shared for the first time. The conceptual framework for this analysis is grounded in various scholarly contributions, including Niklas Luhmann’s idea of organizations as constituting systems of communication, the distinction first made by Gordon and Babchuck (1959), between expressive and instrumental organizations; and elements of organizational typologies from various disciplines.