1 FOUR _____ Sunni Clergy Politics in the Cities of Ba‘thi Syria Thomas Pierret (in LAWSON, Fred dir. Demystifying Syria. Londres : Saqi, 2009. p. 70-84). Given the ruthless repression of lay Islamic activists, Sunni clerics have come to occupy a hegemonic position on Syria’s religious scene. By actively supporting the regime, some of these clerics (‘ulama) have been able to monopolise access to official institutions and media, following the example of the late Grand Mufti Ahmad Kaftaru and the Kurdish-born scholar Sa‘id Ramadan al-Buti. In its quest for legitimacy, however, the Ba‘thi regime of President Bashshar al-Asad has been forced to widen its support base by giving freer rein to previously hostile but popular religious trends. Relying on two years of fieldwork among Syrian Islamic circles, 1 this article aims to scratch the surface of ‘official Islam’ and shed light on lesser-known players whose role is likely to increase in the future. The scope of this article is limited to people commonly considered to be ‘ulama. In contemporary Syria, the category is loosely defined, since it supposes neither official appointment nor graduation from an Islamic university. Rather, the social construction of this status is a complex process that involves formal and informal religious criteria, career orientation, self-presentation and family background. It consequently sometimes overlaps with the group of lay Islamic activists and intellectuals, who are not included in the present study. In the absence of a unified public sphere, Syria’s ‘ulama are fragmented into a number of local scenes that are marginally interconnected. Regional identities remain very strong, as illustrated by the proverbial antagonism between Damascus and Aleppo, which is still deeply felt in relations between the two cities’ religious elites. The choice made here to focus on the country’s two largest urban centres results not only from practical considerations but also from the fact that tight control by the security apparatus in smaller cities and towns, including Homs and Hama, restrains both the clergy’s dynamism and the possibilities for field research.