Appointed by al-Sharaa
Supported by independent sources
On 18 May 2025 Ahmed al-Sharaa issued Decree No. 28 of 2025 appointing Abdul Rahim Atoun head of the Religious Affairs Advisory Office at the Presidency. 1 2 Since March 2025 he has also sat on the Supreme Fatwa Council, created by Decree No. 8 on the day Osama al-Rifai was appointed Grand Mufti. 3 2 In June 2025 Syria TV reported that he had chaired a panel, including the Minister of Higher Education, that interviewed candidates to head Syrian universities. 4
Jabhat al-Nusra and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham
Supported by independent sources
Syria TV reports that he joined Jabhat al-Nusra, then al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, in 2012 under the name Abu Abdullah al-Shami, and wrote several of its doctrinal books, including «In the Shade of the Tree of Jihad», which was taught in the group’s induction courses. 4 Free Press Network describes him as one of al-Nusra’s leading religious voices in its dispute with the Islamic State group and as a supporter of its 2016 break with al-Qaeda. 2
In 2024, according to Syria TV, he was HTS’s “General Follow-up Official”, an important executive post, and head of its Supreme Council for Fatwa. 4 In December 2024 Türkiye Today described him as head of the HTS sharia council and a close confidant of its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (Ahmed al-Sharaa), who frequently visited him. 5
Free Press Network reports that he announced his resignation from HTS in January 2018; later reporting shows him in senior HTS posts in 2024. 2 4 5
The 2024 “agents affair”
Supported by independent sources
From 2023 HTS detained hundreds of civilians, fighters and senior members on suspicion of working for Damascus or foreign governments. A detainee’s death under torture in 2024 set off protests in Idlib; al-Jolani called the protesters’ demands “mostly justified” and announced a restructuring of the security force running the prisons. 6
Published allegation
According to Syria TV, al-Jolani formed an investigation committee that included Atoun, Anas Khattab (whom it calls Abu Ahmed Hudud) and Asaad al-Shaibani (Zaid al-Attar), and Atoun was responsible for issuing the religious ruling that allowed the security apparatus to use torture to obtain confessions. Syria TV writes that when this became known, after the detainees were released, it embarrassed the group and Atoun as one of the officials directly responsible, and that he then defended HTS’s “project” in a long series of posts on his Telegram channel. 4 7 We have not been able to verify the claim independently, and we have found no response from Atoun to it.
Before 2011, according to Assad-era records
Published allegation
Syria TV cites an interrogation record from Assad-era security documents obtained by the outlet Daraj. According to it, Atoun was born in 1981 in Ta’um, Idlib, graduated from the Faculty of Sharia at Damascus University in 2002 and taught Islamic education in al-Thawra (Tabqa), Raqqa province. In May 2008 he was detained on behalf of Military Intelligence Branch 235 (the “Palestine Branch”) and referred to the State Security Court prosecution, accused of planning to go to Iraq to fight and of holding extremist literature. 4 Records produced by the Assad security services may contain statements obtained under duress. Free Press Network gives a different account: born in 1956, with no documented formal education. 2
Positions on record
Published allegation
According to Free Press Network, in a lecture in Aleppo he declared democracy, and those who embrace it, to be outside Islam, and rejected parliaments, a civil state and negotiated settlements as ways of applying sharia, as well as the idea of a “Syrian homeland”. 2 We have not been able to review the recordings.
Supported by independent sources
In a 2021 lecture organised in Idlib he presented the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan as a model for combining military and political action. 5 2 On his Telegram channel he set out the pillars of HTS’s “project”: sharia as the reference for all laws, and military, security, political, economic, religious and administrative pillars, the last embodied by the Salvation Government. After the fall of the Assad government he described the goal as building Syria along four paths: preaching, developing society, strengthening and defending Syria, and relief. 4 7
