A video from a Syrian school shows a principal leading children in an Islamist call-and-response chant: “Allah is our goal, the Messenger is our role model, the Qur’an is our constitution, jihad is our way, and death in the path of Allah is our highest aspiration.”
This is not simply the replacement of Ba’athist slogans with religious vocabulary. It signals the normalization of an ideology that presents itself as transcending national borders: scripture replaces a civic constitution, jihad becomes “the way,” and death in the path of God is elevated as the highest aspiration.
That should concern people far beyond Syria. Children raised within such an ideological framework do not remain children forever, and transnational Islamist movements are, by definition, not confined by Syria’s borders.
What makes this moment particularly consequential is that it is unfolding while Ahmad al-Sharaa faces limited international pressure over this kind of ideological messaging and has gained substantial international recognition and legitimacy. The danger is that the world may mistake a change in political presentation for a change in the ideology being cultivated underneath it.