Normalizing U.S. relations and lifting American sanctions on Syria likely contributed to this historic moment—which appears to be a meaningful step in the right direction.
Syria’s Supreme Fatwa Council has issued a landmark fatwa banning all forms of extrajudicial killings- including so-called honor killings, tribal retaliation, and vigilante justice. The fatwa unequivocally states that such acts are impermissible and that justice must be administered solely by the state, within the framework of formal law and judicial institutions. This is not merely a religious opinion- it is a direct repudiation of the lawlessness that flourished under Bashar al-Assad’s regime, where parallel justice systems, local Sharia courts, and tribal militias were often tolerated or quietly empowered as tools of social control. Under Assad, honor killings and revenge killings persisted under a veneer of cultural legitimacy, reinforced by impunity and weak legal enforcement.
With this fatwa, Syria’s new authorities are signaling a break from that legacy. It delegitimizes the informal courts and power structures that thrived in the regime's shadow, and reasserts the primacy of a centralized rule of law. This is a foundational step toward building a sovereign legal state- one where justice is delivered by the judiciary, not by the barrel of a gun or the weight of custom.