<\/p>\n
Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Friday appointed Osama al-Rifai, a moderate Muslim cleric known for having opposed now ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad, as the country’s grand mufti.<\/p>\n
“Today, this position is held by one of the finest scholars” in Syria, Sharaa said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Rifai, a Damascene born in 1944, publicly expressed opposition to Assad after anti-government protests broke out in 2011.<\/p>\n
He was beaten after giving a Friday sermon that year when government forces stormed his mosque, beating and arresting people, and he left the country not long after the incident.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rifai served as head of an Islamic council set up in Istanbul in 2014 for Syrians opposed to Assad, returning to Damascus to a warm public welcome after Sharaa’s Islamist-led rebels ousted the longtime ruler in December.<\/p>\n
In 2021, Assad had issued a decree eliminating the post of grand mufti and expanding the powers of a government ministry overseeing religious affairs.<\/p>\n
That decree effectively forced Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun, whom Assad had appointed in 2004, into retirement.<\/p>\n
This week, unofficial reports said the former grand mufti, known for his support of Assad, was arrested at the airport as he sought to leave the country.<\/p>\n
Authorities have not made a public announcement on the matter, but family members on social media have confirmed that Hassoun was detained.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n
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Damascus: Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Friday appointed Osama al-Rifai, a moderate Muslim cleric known for having opposed now ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad, as the country’s grand mufti. “Today, this position is held by one of the finest scholars” in Syria, Sharaa said in a statement. Rifai, a Damascene born in 1944, publicly expressed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1179,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions\/1179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}