The paper is one of the first privately owned publications in Syria.
[1] Its sister paper is Al Watan, a daily newspaper.
[3] The owner of the weekly is Rami Makhlouf, the cousin of the Syrian President Bashar Assad.
[4][5] As of 2012 the paper both exhibited a critical attitude towards slow progress in the economic and social fields and clearly supported the Assad regime's national and foreign policies.
[6] The weekly was the only Syrian publication that paid adequate tribute to Rafik Hariri, the assassinated prime minister of Lebanon in February 2005.