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The article focuses on the use of Islam as cultural dialect in Syria in 2000 under the nation's leader Bashar al-Asad. It notes that Islamic symbols and vocabulary were used by Ba'thist regime under Bashar in an attempt to gain legitimacy and popularity among pious Sunni Muslims in the nation. It adds that the growing use of Islamic rhetoric by the regime works in tandem with its efforts to ensure the acquiescence of the Sunni religious establishment for its political and social projects. It explores the efforts of Bashar to reshape Aleppo as the capital of Islamic culture. Also mentioned are vernacular religion and the limits of religious policies of Bashar.

The article explores the relationship regarding the pilgrimage, devotional practices, and consumption of religious commodities of transnational Shiism in Iran and Syria. One important element in the production of mass pilgrimage is the establishment of the correct identification of each holy site despite some contradiction. According to the author, the emergence of religious commodities is a fundamental element in the religious efficacy of pilgrimage as a mechanism of religious discipline.