59 3 The Discourses of the Damascene Sunni Ulama during the 2011 Revolution Jawad Qureshi The Arab Spring and Religion The events that sparked the Arab Spring date back to December 2010 and occurred in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid, where Muhamed Bouazizi, a street vendor who could not afford to pay the bribes needed for a permit, immolated himself after being harassed by the local police. Protests and rallies took off throughout Tunisia and led to the unexpected ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. Shortly thereafter, a wave of protests swept across the Middle East that resulted in the resignations of both Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh and the killing of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. Of the countries that saw mass protests, only two regimes have so far resisted being toppled, the monarchy of King Hamad al-Khalifa of Bahrain and the Syrian Baath Party under Bashar al-Assad. More than a year since the beginning of these events, the monarchy in Bahrain has successfully quelled the uprising while in Syria the Baath regime remains engaged in fighting an emboldened populace that does not appear ready to give up. Over the past year, the role of religion and religious actors has been a recurring concern for many observers. At the start of the Arab Spring, analysts were keen to note that the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions were not led by Islamists and that there was a general absence of religion and ideology in the rhetoric of the protesters. In Egypt, the conspicuous absence of Al-Azhar’s leadership from the demonstrations was made up for by images of Azharis—recognizable by their distinct white turban and red tarboush—standing alongside protestors, including also Coptic Christians, re-assuring many that sectarian fears and identity