Watch: Three and a Half Hours with Hussein Al-Shar’a, the Syrian President’s Nasserite Father

Last week, the Syrian podcast “To Be Continued…” hosted a particularly intriguing guest. For the first time, Arabi TV’s affiliated podcast featured Dr. Hussein Al-Shar’a — the father of none other than Syria’s current President, Ahmed Al-Shar’a.

The Shar'as by Sora Open AI 

If you think his son, the former FBI’s most wanted man Abu Mohamed al-Golani, is a controversial figure, then you should meet his father: a veteran oil economist and researcher.

“Al-Shar’a… the Story of Father and Son”
الشرع.. حكاية الأب والابن
“From his village of Jibeen to political asylum in Iraq and then into the corridors of power, Hussein Al-Shar’a recounts the milestones of his life as a witness to corruption, revealing how his son, Ahmad… pic.twitter.com/fxppjywXDC

— Qusay Noor (@QUSAY_NOOR_) August 28, 2025

Thanks to Qusay Noor for translating the whole interview.

The episode focuses on the life of Hussein Al-Shar’a, a figure whose story, I believe, is essential to understanding the paradoxical character of his son, Ahmed Al-Shar’a.

Hussein Al-Shar’a comes from a Sunni landlord family in the occupied Golan. A proud Nasserite, he remains one of the very few Syrians who still speak positively about the brief union between Egypt and Syria. That stance often frustrates younger Syrians, many of whom view those three years as the beginning of military rule and all the turmoil that followed. Personally, I believe the roots of Syria’s “coup curse” run deeper, predating the union with Egypt.

A prolific writer, Dr. Al-Shar’a has authored around 20 books, four of which were banned under Hafez al-Assad. In 2013, he left Syria, living first in Lebanon, then Egypt, and later settling in Turkey.

For me, Hussein Al-Shar’a is a fascinating character.

It is not every day that you come across a Syrian Nasserite economist, historian, and political activist from a Golan landlord family, with six children whose lives could each warrant their own book. One son is a doctor educated in Russia, married to a Russian woman, and now serves as the current secretary-general of the Syrian presidential palace. Another became a capitalist businessman who once headed Pepsi Iraq and later played a central role in Syria’s economy. The youngest fled to Iraq to fight the U.S. occupation — returning as a wanted terrorist, only to ascend to the presidency in one of the most extraordinary reversals of modern times.

I can only imagine the debates around the Al-Shar’a family table in Damascus during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Even more striking, Dr. Hussein Al-Shar’a does not hesitate to criticize some of his son’s political and economic policies openly on Facebook.

The interview is long, and ironically, Hussein Al-Shar’a spoke more about Nasser and the United Arab Republic than about his own son, whom he consistently referred to as “Sheikh Ahmed.”

Listening to him, I understood why Hussein Al-Shar’a once lashed out against claims that his son was “U.S.-made,” insisting instead that he was entirely “Syrian-made.” The irony is that as a Nasserite teenager, Hussein himself fled Syria, accused of leading a militant coup, and continued his education in Iraq during the turbulent 1960s. Decades later, his youngest son, though an Islamist, repeated that trajectory by fleeing to Iraq to fight the U.S. occupation — though unlike his father, he did not pursue his studies.

I found myself wishing the podcaster had asked Dr. Hussein Al-Shar’a whether he saw echoes of his own story in the path his youngest son chose.