Neo-Umayyadism and the Politics of Performance

On April 21st 2025, Iraqi Shi’a radud (chanter) Khader Abbas released an 18-minute latmiyya (elegiac chant) on YouTube titled: “The Army of the Umayyads Has Returned.” Performed before a large crowd, he mourned the condition of Sayyida Zaynab’s shrine in Damascus, which he described as being desecrated and abandoned following the collapse of the Assad regime. Abbas declared: "Zaynab is guarded by Shimr now”, referring to Shimr ibn Dhil-Jawshan, a commander in the Umayyad army who, in Shiite memory, symbolizes ultimate treachery for his role in the killing of Husayn (RA), grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), at Karbala in 680 CE.

In reality, the shrine has remained intact, protected, and regularly visited by pilgrims, many of them from Iraq, since the collapse of the regime. In fact, just months earlier, Syrian security forces had foiled an ISIS plot targeting the site. Abbas’s performance wasn’t an isolated cry of grief but part of a longstanding tradition of sectarian messaging that has cast the Syrian struggle as a reenactment of Karbala. It echoes the narratives used to justify the involvement of Shiite militias from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, who claimed to defend holy sites while propping up a murderous regime.

As for the Umayyads, they were a dynasty that governed the Islamic Caliphate from 661 to 750 CE, establishing their capital in Damascus and transforming it into the political and cultural heart of the Muslim world. Under their leadership, the caliphate expanded rapidly, stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to the borders of India, making it one of the largest empires of its time. They introduced Arabic as the language of administration, developed a centralised bureaucracy, and commissioned landmark architecture such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque of Damascus. Their legacy is foundational to Islamic civilisation in terms of statecraft, infrastructure, and cultural development.

Yet for many Shiites, the Umayyads are remembered as usurpers of prophetic authority and persecutors of the Prophet’s family. The martyrdom of Husayn (RA) at the Battle of Karbala by an army loyal to Yazid ibn Muawiyah left an enduring imprint of betrayal, one that continues to shape memory and identity across the region. From the early days of the Syrian revolution, Shiite militias aligned with the Assad regime framed their intervention in terms of avenging Karbala. From Tehran to Beirut, young men were called upon to "protect the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab", a narrative that masked their role in a brutal war against large swaths of the Syrian population.

In this light, Khader Abbas’s latmiyya naming Syrians "Umayyads" was more than elegy or provocation. It was a political accusation laced with historical grievance. But for many Syrians, the label no longer carried shame. The response on Syrian social media was swift and irreverent. Instead of outrage, there were memes, remixes, and parody videos. TikTok and Instagram were filled with clips mocking Abbas’s performance, turning it into a moment of unintended defiance. Some even edited onto it a precursor clip of Abbas from an older lattmiya, singing, in a much more confident and upbeat tone: “Together, with the same cause. Together, against the Ummayads”. The implication and butt of the joke being their utter humiliation following defeat in Syria. For some, it was ideological; for others, a joke. Either way, the insult had been co-opted.

Indeed, a visible trend has emerged across Syrian social platforms, an embrace of an identity that is both political and cultural, that can loosely be described as "Neo-Umayyadism." It is less a political movement and more of a loosely formed cultural reaction that is borne out of irreverence, spite, irony, and even sincerity. Whether the motive is sincerity or spite, however, neo-Umayyadism is built on the imagination of a Sunni revival in the region against decades of Iranian-led Shiite influence, with Syria at its centre. It is a form of populism which combines the historical symbolism of the Umayyads, with Damascus as their Capital, with the euphoria of a hopeful, modern-day Syria that has broken free of the shackles of Iranian occupation. One of the most viral nasheeds associated with this mood is “Banū Umayyah, Aṣluhum Dhahab” ("The Umayyads, their Origin is Gold"), by Syrian singer Majid Al-Khaldi. Released prior to the liberation, it has gained millions of views across several re-uploads, not counting the hundreds of hours of edits, remixes, and spin-offs produced since it was originally uploaded. What some may overlook, however, is that in both tone and content, this nasheed closely mirrors the very latmiyyat propagated by figures like Abbas, echoing their chants, melodies, and victimhood posturing, but repackaged for a different audience. The expression of this newfound identity has not been limited to art, if it can even be called that, but has also spilled into low-quality online discourse, where any dissent is treated as betrayal of the imagined Umayyad revival, and where every rhetorical jab, meme, or ratio is celebrated as a vindication of Sunni pride and a symbolic triumph in the name of the “Syria is Umayyad” cause. 

What we are witnessing in online spaces is not a sincere revival of Umayyad identity or legacy. It is, at best, a symbolic alignment, emotionally charged, culturally performative, and deeply rooted in the trauma of over a decade of revolution, war and sectarian dispossession. At worst, it is a yearning for a past identity which is not grounded in theology, historical scholarship, or coherent political ideology, nor is it borne out of anything beyond a poor, surface level, cherry-picked and reductive understanding of the Umayyads. Beyond anything else, it’s a reactive aesthetic shaped by slogans, memes, and viral anthems which fall short of any serious reconstruction of the past.

Neo-Umayyadism has emerged as a response to the sectarian narrative imposed on the Syrian revolution. Syrians did not choose to be cast as modern-day Umayyads; that narrative was forced on them by their adversaries. In that context, it is totally understandable that many Sunni Syrians would reach for it as a symbol of who they are. The image of a powerful, victorious dynasty that is hated by your present-day antagonists provides emotional refuge, especially when you are already being vilified as its heir by said antagonists. 

Still, that symbolic response, or that performance while emotionally resonant, is politically limited. Neo-Umayyadism is not a doctrine. It does not offer a vision for governance or a roadmap for inclusion. It is a mood, a gesture, a flare of cultural resistance. But it cannot build institutions. It cannot reconcile differences. Its endpoint, if it has one, is projecting a heavily romanticised narrative at best, or revenge fantasy at worst. The rhetoric appeals to a Sunni imaginary shaped by both pain and pride. But in mirroring the logic it resents, it risks reinforcing the same divisions. When Syrians are cast into the roles of Umayyads and Hashimites, heroes and villains, they are no longer imagining a shared future, they are reenacting an inherited script that has little practical use for the present-day. Neo-Umayyadism as I have defined it in this piece is not just limited because it largely operates as a politics of performance. It is politically limited and harmful because what it chooses to emulate from the Umayyads leaves little room for drawing on the material or institutional legacy of their rule. Instead of drawing inspiration from their historical contributions to statecraft, architecture, infrastructure, urban development, bureaucracy, it leans on mythic imagery and sectarian pride.

Most Syrians gave little thought to the Umayyads before the war. This revival is not about historical memory. It is about survival. The label was imposed, and now some have claimed it, out of defiance, not belief. But identities born of trauma often preserve pain rather than transcend it. And for a generation born in exile, in Gaziantep, Berlin, Amman, these symbols mean even less. Karbala is not their point of reference. Dignity is. Syrians seek a functional state. A politics of inclusion, not mythical reenactment. I’ve often seen Syrians go to great lengths to (rightly) mock the absurdity of the narratives that underpin the political projects of Iranian-aligned actors in the region. Entire ideologies rooted in an eternalised sense of victimhood, where every word, decision, and worldview is shaped by events from 1400 years ago. These narratives have stifled political maturity, obstructed development, and bear no material relevance to the everyday needs of people living today.

So why do we turn around and reproduce the same logic in reverse, crafting a counter-victimhood narrative of our own? 

It is a kind of folly, to mirror your adversaries so precisely that you become useful to their very project.

Every nation needs myths. But some myths divide. Others can heal. Neo-Umayyadism may offer catharsis, even poetry. But it is not a blueprint. The future will not be found in the tombs of Damascus’s caliphs, whichever way they’re perceived. It will be written by the living, not the ghosts.