Islamic scholar dubbed 'Syrian Gandhi' for non-violent activism dies at 90

A prominent Syrian Islamic scholar and advocate for non-violence has died in Istanbul, Syrian media reported on Monday.

Jawdat Said, a 90-year-old critic of Syria’s Assad regime who graduated from Egypt's Al-Azhar university, dedicated much of his life to advocating for what he called "non-violent Islam", rejecting extremism and the use of violence even in self defence.

Many activists referred to him as "the Arab Gandhi" for his peaceful activism.

Said held lectures and seminars in universities and cultural centres across the world - including in Iran, Turkey, Canada, and the United States - stressing that Islam was a religion of peace. 

Syrian preacher of nonviolent resistance and Islamic thinker Jawdat Said passed away yesterday in exile in Turkey.

His great legacy will live on with everyone who believes in nonviolent struggle for a peaceful and democratic Syria for all. May he RIP.https://t.co/BjWWQlR2cG

— The Syria Campaign (@TheSyriaCmpgn) January 31, 2022

Among Said's most famous works were ‘The Problem of Violence in the Islamic World’, which was published in 1966 and his 2002 publication ‘Non-violence, the basis of settling disputes in Islam’. 

He was arrested several times for his peaceful opposition activism.

People across the globe were influenced by Said's work and paid tribute to him online after he died, including Ali al-Qaradaghi, the Secretary General of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, who called him "one of the founders of civil resistance, who was faithful to his principles while rejecting oppression".

Reem Assil, one of the founders of the Syrian Non-Violence Movement, said that while she only met him once, she got to know his ideas by meeting many people who "were raised in his thought".

"It wasn't just non-violence which distinguished him, it was his capacity to accept modernity and open-mindedness and make it an original product of Islamic culture," she wrote on Facebook.

"He was astonishing in his richness of mind... [he] passed away in body, but this wealth remains," Assil added.

Jawdat was born in 1931 in Syria's Golan Heights - which was captured by Israel in 1967 - and left Syria in 2012 after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011.

The Islamic funeral prayer for him was held on Monday after noon daily prayers, according to his Facebook page, at a mosque in the Uskudar suburb of Istanbul.