When we experience good fortune suddenly, unexpectedly, in life-changing ways, we commonly call it a miracle. There is a sense that benevolent forces have intervened to grant favor to the person, family, or community that was suffering in some way. A miracle is defined by dictionaries as an event that cannot be explained by natural or scientific laws and is thus considered to be produced by a divine agency.
Happenings such as the spontaneous remission of a life-threatening disease, the recovery of sight by a blind person, the salvaging of lives from a bombed-out building, a monetary windfall for a family in financial distress, or the growth of vegetables in sandy soil, are often called miracles. Yet rarely, if ever, has the word been applied to the fate of a country.
Syria’s rising from its ashes like the mythical phoenix, in less than a year, could legitimately be termed a miracle.
Syria’s rising from its ashes like the mythical phoenix, in less than a year, could legitimately be termed a miracle. There is no rational explanation for what has occurred. A despotic regime backed by a military superpower was deposed in a bloodless coup by a band of revolutionaries in eleven days. The coup was orchestrated by a militia leader who seamlessly assumed the role of head of state, rapidly gaining respect at home and abroad. A despondent people, living in fear and despair for many decades, experienced the ecstatic joy of liberation, unleashing a flood of creative energy for rebuilding homes, schools and hospitals, drawing millions of Syrians to return from exile. A country in ruins quickly became a vast construction site.
Within weeks of the coup, the leader and his colleagues were recognized for their commitment to establishing a nation based on justice, truth and democratic principles. They removed remnants of the old regime and designed the foundations of a nation forged in unity and sovereignty. Fanning out across the globe, they rapidly attracted support of many different kinds from nations large and small, and the United Nations. A country completely defeated materially, barely rising from the rubble, firmly set its own terms in establishing relations with wealthy and powerful nations, based on mutual respect.
Four months after assuming power in Damascus, the new leader impressed the president of the world’s most powerful nation sufficiently for him to order the removal of debilitating penalties and sanctions, to enable the country to rebuild. Eight months after taking office, this new leader addressed the nations of the world in New York City, where he outlined the positions and priorities of the new Syria. Two months later, he was welcomed in the White House and met with congressional leaders of the world’s most powerful nation.
In less than a year, an obscure leader of an insurgency fighting to remove a cruel dictatorship, unknown beyond his immediate circle, walked onto the world stage.
In less than a year, an obscure leader of an insurgency fighting to remove a cruel dictatorship, unknown beyond his immediate circle, walked onto the world stage. His name and face became widely recognized through global media. He is seen as a hero in Syria and the Middle East, and by oppressed peoples everywhere. Citizens of Arab nations express their love and admiration for him on the internet, some seeing him as a divine manifestation. Citizens of Western nations express amazement at his miraculous rise to power, though many harbor suspicions about him based on their own worldviews and his past involvement in violent revolutionary movements.
A question on many minds is whether the nature of the leader had really changed from that of a revolutionary to a seeker of peace. This question was directly put to him during a recent Western television interview. Although unanswerable in a soundbite for TV, he had hinted at an answer in an interview last January, sitting in the presidential palace in Damascus, weeks after assuming the presidency. Asked how he felt about his sudden transition from rebel leader to leader of the nation, he replied that he didn’t choose to lead a rebellion, and he didn’t choose to become a president, but that was where life had led him.
What we are witnessing in Syria’s president is something new in our world: an altruistic human being, powerful and fearless, driven by the inner authority of his soul to serve and redeem his nation, with special concern for those who suffered most under the former regime and who are the most vulnerable.
His life of service began as an idealistic teenager, when he enlisted in the fight against a superpower and its allies which invaded a neighboring country. Arrested and imprisoned by the invading forces for five years, he was released synchronously with the beginning of Syria’s revolution in 2011, as peaceful protesters began demanding government reforms. The regime responded with harsher waves of repression, igniting a mobilization of armed opposition forces, some of which became anchored in the northern region of Idlib under the leadership of the country’s future president. After nearly fourteen years of struggle to liberate the people from a hellish existence, the dictator was removed, and a new life began for Syria.
When seen from this perspective, it’s obvious that the leader did not ‘change his stripes.’ He is still fighting for justice, as he set out to do at age eighteen, but justice in a different form. Since removing the tyranny of the former regime, he and his colleagues have been struggling to relieve the deep and painful wounds caused by decades of oppression, division, and civil war, and to create a climate where justice and transparency, freedom and responsibility, unity in diversity, can flourish. Their stated goal is a society that serves the greatest good for all citizens and lives in peace and harmony with its neighbors.
What can be observed in Syria thus far is a manifestation of ancient prophecies about humanity’s potential to create a world of benefit to all living beings and our Earth. But because we are unused to such behavior in leaders of nations, there is a natural inclination to either ignore or distrust what we are actually seeing, to believe that the appearance of goodness is illusory and that it will not last. Some expect that conflict and corruption, endemic to previous regimes, will resume their grip on Syrian life.
What if the values and behavior of the new government are signs of the emergence of the long-dormant spiritual nature of human beings—the higher self or soul? And what if the embodiment of this potential, at the time when old systems are collapsing, is actually part of a divine plan for humanity’s evolution?
But what if we are actually witnessing a demonstration of the divine-human potential foreseen by prophets and seers? What if the values and behavior of the new government are signs of the emergence of the long-dormant spiritual nature of human beings—the higher self or soul? And what if the embodiment of this potential, at the time when old systems are collapsing, is actually part of a divine plan for humanity’s evolution? Could that explain the steady flow of miracles accompanying Syria’s renewal?
Time will tell whether the rebirth of this nation is a modern-day fable, destined to be ephemeral, or a higher expression of human potential destined to inspire us all with a vision of our collective future. In either case, it is a story that fascinates, inspires, and renews hope for our species.
November 2025