The Death of Syria’s Mystery Woman - New Lines Magazine
Fascinating story on a quietist and quietly influential religious movement in Syria, by Laila Alrefaai and Obayda Amer in Newlines:
The Qubaysiyat have been a secretive, at times underground, revivalist Islamic movement. The group has focused on promoting conservative religious education alongside the secular curriculum taught throughout Syria’s public school system. At first, it did so through underground cells, teaching “lessons” in private homes. But since the early 2000s, when Bashar al-Assad came to power and loosened the country’s restrictions on private schools and colleges, educational institutions run or influenced by the Qubaysiyat have become ubiquitous in Syria, often recognizable by their female teachers, who wear distinctive navy veils. The movement remains largely unknown to the broader world, yet it is believed to boast tens of thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of disciples within Syria, as well as in franchises across the Middle East and even as far afield as Europe and the Americas. At the center of it all has been the towering figure of al-Qubaysi, a woman as influential within the group as she has been mysterious.