Repairing Syrians’ Hearts and Minds

I welcomed Al Sharaa’s statement that we will rebuild a destroyed Syria “until the last tent is gone.”

I recall the day back in 2012 when I crossed the border from Reyhanli—or Reyhaniyeh, as Syrians call it. For some five years, while the Syrian humanitarian response was centred there, I thought this dusty border town was the capital of Turkey. I lost count of how many medical and humanitarian missions I made between my home in the UK and my homeland in Syria, never once stopping in Istanbul as I transited through it.

I remember the very first crossing with UOSSM into northern Syria. A few of us doctors from the Syrian diaspora gathered in a little office as we prepared for our entry. As we sat with glasses of chai, with all banality, we were asked if we had written our wills. When most of us said no, we were handed blank A4 sheets and a pen. It is a focusing moment when you are forced to consider your mortality—something you may be surprised to hear I hadn’t deeply considered, even though I was about to enter an active and vicious war zone.

I had never been to Idlib before this time, though I knew it was rural and poor, having been neglected for decades under the Assad regime. Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of the makeshift village that had begun to sprout in Atmeh. This was early on, before it became an ocean of tents and with displaced people adrift on the land. It was the haunted looks that have stayed with me—a window into an unspeakable horror that they had witnessed and escaped. Some asked for money, some for medicine, and many spoke to me in English, thinking I was a foreign journalist. One man shook me deeply as he spoke with dignity and sadness: “Don’t see me as a dirty, dusty man. I am a professor at the university. We had a home and two cars. Now we have nothing.”

And so yes, Mr Al Sharaa, let us rebuild Syrians’ broken bricks and return our fellow women, children, and men home—they have suffered enough, and they deserve to start over.

That said, I do not hear anywhere of the task of rebuilding our shattered hearts and minds. To say that each Syrian, whether at home or abroad, is traumatized and in need of healing feels woefully inadequate. No matter how monumental the challenge of rebuilding a destroyed country may seem, I can assure you it pales in comparison to repairing the inner shattering of our collective being. Perhaps this is why most do not speak of it. It’s too raw and painful. Too enormous.

And yet we know that healing does not happen simply with time, contrary to popular belief. Undigested and unprocessed trauma does not just disappear. It lodges itself in our physical, emotional, and energetic bodies, creating chronic pain, inflammation, and autoimmune conditions. At the collective level, it fuels the cycles of fear, mistrust, and grief—all of which we have in epic proportions. Thirteen years of war is enough to wound an entire nation, and we have over 4,700 of those days to process.

We don’t just have a war to heal from. We have a brutal regime that infused mistrust, violence, and injustice into every corner of our collective psyche. And so, we have that to heal, too.

And not only that.

We have our dear “neighbours” bombing and colonizing our lands, apparently for our own good. Let us not pass over the fact that Al Golani was born to Syrian-displaced parents after the Golan Heights were taken over by Israel. We have much to thank our neighbours for—the many jihadis who found purpose in joining countless fighting factions, continuing to manufacture more violence, hatred, and injustice for us all. I pray for the day we celebrate the liberation of our Palestinian sisters and brothers—to see a giant Debkeh start in my hometown of Homs and extend into Lebanon and Palestine, a celebration for the ages. What felt like a deluded dream last week now feels like imminent hope after the fall of the “forever” Syrian regime.

Now that the regime has fallen, Syrians can talk openly for the first time about their missing loved ones. Those who have not lived in silence cannot know its damaging extent. I recall being around nine years old, in a car with my father during election times. Pictures of Hafez al-Assad were everywhere. My father mentioned something about voting, and I innocently asked who the candidates were. He told me it was only Hafez al-Assad, to which I replied, “What’s the point of an election, then?” My father smiled, but remembering we were in a taxi, he quickly shouted at me. Taxis were considered one of the riskiest places to speak ill of the regime, lest the driver report you and—poof—you disappear.

But back to healing. Before you think I am a merchant of misery, let me stop you—it is quite the opposite.

We stand, like never before, at the peak of hope and possibility. The potential of Syrians is glorious. I have the honour and privilege of knowing many brilliant civil society workers and leaders—the very people who will rebuild Syria into the just and prosperous country it can be. The Syrian people possess resilience, strength, entrepreneurship, and a sense of humour that will carry us into that better watan (homeland) we all dream of.

While many people panic about “an Islamic force” in charge, I want to highlight something deeply uncomfortable for us to face: our prejudice, mistrust, and lack of faith.

The collective has absorbed a distorted version of Islam—the version broadcast by the Taliban, Daesh, and other so-called Islamist forces, amplified by Western media and power. This has led to rampant Islamophobia, not just among non-Muslims, but even among us Muslims. We have forgotten that true Islam—a God-loving, heart-conscious faith—can nurture justice, peace, wisdom, and compassion.

Our hearts have become hardened by fear and expectations of disappointment. Yet I believe we must nurture these early seeds of hope that Allah has gifted us. If we allow them to take root in our hearts, they will begin to nourish our malnourished souls.

I do not know the new ruling force intimately, but so far, we have mostly seen good. The river of blood that many predicted did not come—or rather, it flowed from the regime and its Russian allies. The liberation of Syria has been astonishing in its form.

Yes, we can and will rebuild our bricks and mortar, but these will mean little if we cannot find joy, love, and trust again. For too long, we have only felt our pain, and that will continue. The horror of the prisons, and the discovery of mass graves—will deepen our grief. Yet we must not let pain lock us away from life.

The revolution does not end with the fall of the regime. This is a revolution for freedom and dignity, and those cannot exist if we are still imprisoned by our wounds.

We can hold our hope in one hand and our pain in the other. This is the time for sacred activism—to rebuild our collective self-esteem and reawaken our belief in what is possible. Let us not be hoodwinked into feeling impotent. Power does not come from controlling outcomes; it flows from our endless capacity to choose.

Yes, there is reason to celebrate and room for hope. Syria’s fate will not be worse if guided by true Islam—not the sword-wielding extremism many fear, but the Islam of taqwa, heart-consciousness, justice, and compassion. If this does not fit your idea of Islam, I invite you to meet a spiritual Muslim. Get to know the true love of God and all His creatures.

Many of us have turned away from God—feeling angry and abandoned. And that’s okay. Your suffering is real, and your anger is valid. Take it to your prayer or meditation mat. I did. I screamed, I cried, and I was answered. Every time I fell apart, I felt a loving force put me back together. I realized Allah had never abandoned me—He had been in the blessings I could not see.

Yes, humans did terrible things. Many broke my trust. Yes, I was powerless to control and stop the wounding in both childhood and adulthood. That sense of powerlessness drove both my activism and my inability to ask for help. But through God’s grace, I healed and became whole.

This wholeness is what I dream for Syrians—not just a united land, but a united body, heart, and mind. Individually and collectively.