Arab, Syrian (Muslim traditions)

The Syrian Sunni Arabs are the Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslim majority of Syria, about two in three of its people, living in the great inland cities of Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and Hama, the olive hills of Idlib, the farming clans of the Hauran and the tribal towns of the Euphrates. Their identity mixes pride in old cities, such as Damascus, the Umayyad capital, and Aleppo, with its covered souq stretching some 13 kilometres, with loyalty to clan and tribe. They bore most of the deaths, destruction and exile of the 2011-2024 war; millions still live in camps or abroad, and over a million and a half refugees have come home since the fall of the Assad government in December 2024. Since then a Sunni-led transitional government has rebuilt the state's religious institutions around a new Grand Mufti, and Sunni Arabs, long excluded from power, now hold most senior posts. The figure includes the settled majority of the desert tribes, Anizah, Shammar, Na'im and others, who now live in towns and villages, and the 300,000-600,000 qeltu-speaking Syrians of Deir ez-Zor and the Euphrates valley, whom JP also counts in 'Arab, North Iraqi'; that group's Syria presence is excluded as counted here.

Syrians in Algeria, roughly 6,000 to 10,000 people, are city families who came after 2011, when Algeria let Syrians in without visas until the end of 2014. Many turned to trade: in Baba Hassan, on the edge of Algiers, Syrian textile shops, sweet makers and restaurants are so many that locals call the district Baba Haleb, after Aleppo, and Syrian cooks have become familiar faces on Algerian television. Algeria gives them no refugee status and they must keep renewing short visas, so most work informally or run businesses in an Algerian partner's name, while their children attend Algerian schools free of charge. Since the fall of Syria's old government in December 2024 the number registered as refugees has fallen by about a third, yet many business families now call Algeria home.

Syrians in Egypt, roughly 400,000 people, are city dwellers who came mostly between 2012 and 2014, fleeing the war, and were never placed in camps. Their centre is 6th of October City west of Cairo, where a strip of Syrian shops, sweet makers and shawarma grills is known as Little Damascus, and Syrian workshops have become part of Egypt's textile, furniture and food trades. The fall of Syria's old government in December 2024 sent only a few tens of thousands home; most stay, while tighter residency checks, arrests of those without permits and rising prices have made life less settled than in earlier years. Most are Sunni Muslims from Damascus, Homs, Aleppo and Daraa, with a small Christian minority that worships in Egypt's Orthodox and Catholic churches.

Syrian Arabs in Iraq are a small, mostly urban community of refugees and migrant workers who arrived after 2011, a minority within the roughly 300,000 Syrians in the country, most of whom are Kurds. They come from Aleppo, Damascus, Homs and the Euphrates valley around Deir ez-Zor and Abu Kamal, and their Levantine Arabic sets them apart from both Iraqi Arabs and the Kurds of the Kurdistan Region. Erbil holds the largest number, where Syrian families run shawarma and sweet shops and live in the city and in camps such as Kawergosk and Darashakran, while in Baghdad young Syrian men staff most of the city's restaurant kitchens. Since 2024 the community has been squeezed by visa suspensions, a ban on new Syrian workers and deportations, and in Baghdad by sectarian harassment after the fall of the Assad government.

Syrian Arabs in Jordan are mostly refugees from the war that began in 2011, the largest share from Daraa and the Hauran plain just across the northern border, whose clans and dialect they share with many northern Jordanians. At the 2015 census they numbered almost 1.3 million; since the fall of the Assad government in December 2024 more than 200,000 have gone home, and about 950,000 remain, four in five of them in towns rather than camps. Zaatari, once the world's second largest refugee camp, grew a market street nicknamed the Champs-Élysées with thousands of shops, bakeries and bridal salons. Syrian restaurants and sweet shops are now part of everyday life in Amman, Irbid and Mafraq.

Syrian Arabs are the second-largest Arab expatriate community in Kuwait after the Egyptians, about 200,000 people. Teachers, engineers, doctors and traders began arriving in the 1960s, and after 2011 many residents brought in parents, siblings and children on family visas, since Kuwait does not grant refugee status. Most are Sunni Muslims from Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Daraa, with Christian, Druze and Alawite minorities, and they speak Levantine Arabic in a country where Gulf Arabic and English dominate public life. Syrian sweet shops, shawarma stands and grill restaurants are a familiar sight in Hawalli and Salmiya, apartment districts where many Syrian families live. Since the fall of the Assad government in December 2024 families have weighed going home against Kuwaiti salaries and the destruction they left behind.

Syrian Arabs are the largest community in Lebanon after the Lebanese themselves: about 800,000 people, nearly one resident in six, most of them refugees who crossed the mountains from Homs, Hama, Idlib, Aleppo, Raqqa and rural Damascus after 2011. Syrian labourers had built and harvested in Lebanon for generations before the war, so the refugees joined a long-standing pattern of seasonal work rather than arriving as strangers. Nearly all are Sunni Muslims who speak Levantine Arabic close to the Lebanese dialect, yet they live apart from their hosts: rows of tarpaulin shelters among the potato and vegetable fields of the Bekaa valley, crowded rented rooms in Beirut's southern suburbs and the Akkar plain. Most adults lack legal residency, and the fall of the Assad government in December 2024 and the war of March 2026, when about 175,000 Syrians crossed home in four weeks, have turned every family's question into whether and when to go back.

Syrians in Libya, about 15,000 people counted in 2026, are workers and families spread along the coast from Tobruk to Zawiya, with the largest communities in Benghazi and Tripoli. Syrian craftsmen and traders worked in Libya before 2011, and after Syria's war began thousands of families came here, since Libya was one of the few Arab countries still letting Syrians in; later Benghazi's airport became a gateway for Syrians heading for the boats to Italy. Syrian bakeries, shawarma and sweet shops are now part of Libyan street life, and when Syrian consular teams came to Benghazi and Tripoli in 2025 they renewed tens of thousands of passports. Since the fall of Syria's old government in December 2024 some families have gone home, but most remain, working in construction, trade and food.

About 4,500 Syrians live in Morocco, most of them families who fled the war after 2011, many reaching Oujda overland through Algeria, alongside a few traders, doctors and students settled since the 1970s. They are the largest group of refugees the United Nations registers in Morocco, and in Rabat, Casablanca and Tangier many now run or work in Syrian restaurants, sweet shops and small trades, while others still beg at road junctions in Rabat. Tangier has a quarter known for its Syrians, with a mosque locals call the Mosque of the Syrians. When the old government in Damascus fell in December 2024 they celebrated in Morocco's big cities, yet few plan to go back, and some of their children already call themselves Moroccan; Syria reopened its embassy in Rabat in May 2026 after more than ten years.

Syrians in Qatar, over 64,000 people in 2024, are a long-established community of doctors, engineers, teachers, administrators, traders and craftsmen that roughly doubled after the 2011 uprising, when Qatar let Syrians stay on work contracts or renewable visitor visas rather than as refugees. Qatar was the Syrian opposition's main Gulf backer and in 2013 handed the Syrian embassy in Doha to the opposition coalition, the first such embassy anywhere; the community elected its own council, and a free Syrian school in Al Duhail, funded by the Qatari government since 2013, became the venue for its elections and its vigils for Aleppo and Idlib. Most are Sunni Muslims, with Orthodox and Catholic Christians who worship in Arabic at the Mesaimeer churches. Since Assad's fall in December 2024 the embassy serves the new government, whose president met the community in Doha in April 2025; some families have gone home, but most remain, tied to jobs and their children's schooling.

Syrians in Saudi Arabia, about 450,000 people, are mostly working families rather than refugees: doctors, engineers, traders, teachers and restaurant owners, many of whom came long before Syria's war. About 100,000 lived in the kingdom before 2011, among them exiled scholars from Aleppo who taught in Mecca and merchant families of Jeddah; after 2011 relatives joined them on family visas, and the kingdom gave them residence permits instead of refugee status. With more women and children than most foreign communities, they keep Levantine family life alive in private, from weddings with dabke dancing to long family visits, while Syrian shawarma, kunafa and Damascene sweets have become part of everyday Saudi street food. Most are Sunni Arabs; Kurds, Turkmen, Circassians and Armenians share the nationality, and a small Christian minority worships only at home.

Syrians in Tunisia are a small community of a few thousand, most of whom came after the Syrian war began in 2011. Two quite different groups make it up. Families with older ties to Tunisia, often traders, lecturers or the Syrian spouses of Tunisians who had studied in Damascus, settled in middle-class districts of Tunis and the coastal cities, where Syrian restaurants, caterers and wedding dance troupes have become popular. Later arrivals, mostly rural families who spent years in Lebanon's camps and then crossed the Sahara through Mauritania, Mali and Algeria, live in poor neighbourhoods of southern towns such as Gafsa and Zarzis, doing day labour in the olive and date harvests, and many are still waiting for refugee status years later.

Syrian Arabs are the largest refugee people in Türkiye, about 1.8 million people, most of whom crossed the border from Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs and the Euphrates valley after 2011. At their peak in 2021 Syrians numbered over 3.7 million, but returns since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 have taken away more than 600,000, and about a thousand still leave every day. Nearly all are Sunni Muslims who speak Levantine Arabic, and they live in ordinary city neighbourhoods rather than camps: Istanbul's Fatih, Esenyurt and Sultanbeyli, and the border cities of Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa and Kilis, where Arabic shop signs line whole streets. About a third of the Syrians under temporary protection were born in Türkiye, and children who speak Turkish better than Arabic leave many families split over whether to go home.

Syrians in the Emirates, roughly a quarter to a third of a million people, are one of the country's largest Arab communities and mostly live as families rather than as single workers. Teachers, doctors and merchants came from the 1960s and helped staff the young federation's schools and ministries; a second wave of professionals, entrepreneurs and wealthy families followed after the 2011 uprising, when the UAE gave residence to more than 100,000 Syrians on ordinary work and family visas rather than as refugees. Syrians now run about 40,000 companies, from real estate and hotels to the shawarma shops and Aleppan sweet makers found in every neighbourhood of Dubai, Sharjah and Ajman. Most are Sunni Muslims, with Orthodox and Catholic Christians who worship in Arabic, and since the fall of the Assad government in December 2024 the community has celebrated its heritage openly while many weigh a return home.

Syrian Arabs in Yemen are a few thousand refugees and long-term residents who fled one civil war only to be caught in another. Syrians first came in the 1980s, escaping Hafez al-Assad's crackdown, and many more arrived after 2011 because Yemen still granted them renewable visit visas. When the Saudi-led air war began in 2015, more than ten thousand were trapped in Sana'a, Taiz, Ibb and al-Hudaydah, and most of those who could afford it moved on to Turkey or Egypt. Those who stayed make their living as small restaurateurs, sweet-makers, traders, doctors and students, and the poorest sell jasmine wreaths at traffic lights; nearly all are Sunni Muslims who speak Levantine Arabic.