On March 8, 1963, the Syrian Armed Forces overthrew the government of the French Mandate for Syria in a military coup d'état. After a great deal of struggle between various groups for power, the Ba'athist party assumed power over Syria. Being opposed to religion in general, the Ba'athist theoretician Michel Aflaq associated religion with the old corrupt social order, oppression, and exploitation of the weak; seeming to have been influenced by a mixture of radical Hobbesian and Marxist views on religion. The constitution, however, still made it clear that in quote "Islamic jurisprudence shall be the main source for legislation". Despite this proviso, there were a number of Sunni Muslims who felt that the secularization of the country had gone too far. They pressed for Islam as a state religion, demanding that all laws contrary to Islam should be abrogated. Their beliefs encompassed the understanding that the essential elements of the unity of Syria is the shari'a, which includes laws adequate to organize all aspects of life; at the level of the individual, the family, the nation and the state.