[citation needed] His father was Abdullah Alloush, a scholar and the previous director of Al Assad center for Quran studies in Damascus.

[9] According to Joshua Landis, Alloush called for cleansing Damascus of all Alawites and Shiites,[10] later telling Western journalists that these and similar statements had been caused by the pressure and "psychological stress" he was under from living through the Syrian Government's siege of Ghouta.

A spokesperson from the Army of Islam declared that Alloush would meet rebel groups' leaders there in order to discuss how to lift the siege in Ghouta.

In an interview with The Daily Beast in the same period, his spokesman disassociated Zahran from al-Nusra, denied that he wanted to impose Sharia law, and called for a technocratic government.

[7][15][16][3] He was reported killed, along with other senior members of his faction in the village of Utaya, east of Damascus, on 25 December 2015, in an airstrike on a meeting with rival rebel commanders from Ahrar al-Sham.