SCREAMING hordes of teenage girls are a common sight at pop concerts and film premières. They are less usual when waiting to hear a religious preacher. But such girls—one gasping “I can see him, I can see him” through the folds of her niqab—awaited Moez Masoud, an Egyptian televangelist, recently in Cairo. He is part of a growing band of Islamic preachers who are true celebrities, says Yasmin Moll, a researcher at New York University, who attended Mr Masoud’s talk.
They draw on a Christian tradition pioneered in the 1950s by such preachers as Billy Graham. For the past ten years Amr Khaled, an Egyptian one-time accountant turned televangelist star, has led the way. Previously television preachers fitted the stereotype of white-haired, bearded sheikhs in white robes, monotonously exhorting the faithful, in classical Arabic, to follow the strictures of Islam more exactly.
In 2001 Mr Khaled burst onto screens with his show “Words from the Heart” and his brand of modern, moderate piety. Sharp-suited, mustachioed and speaking colloquial Egyptian, Mr Khaled and his audience (of men and women) discussed the concerns of young Muslims, such as whether Islam forbids cinema-going.
Others have followed in his footsteps. Egyptians dominate, including Mr Masoud and Mustafa Hosny. In Indonesia Abdullah Gymnastiar, known as “Elder Brother Gym”, attracted millions of viewers to his television shows and seminars—until his decision to take a second wife in 2006 outraged his many female fans.
The new breed of televangelist has proved hugely popular with young viewers uninterested in traditional religious programming. But the Muslim religious and political establishment is uncomfortable with these new celebrities: none boasts traditional training as a cleric. In an odd alliance, secularists are also chary, worried that the brand of moderate Islam they peddle could prove to be the gateway to a more extreme version. But stuffy religious authorities are now being forced to acknowledge these stars’ pulling power. In January Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of al-Azhar, the Cairo-based font of Islamic orthodoxy, met Mr Khaled to discuss how to renew religious discourse in Islam.
The appeal of such preachers lies in large part in their very lack of official religious credentials. They present themselves as ordinary Muslims who have overcome personal struggles to discover their faith. Many say they were not religious when they were younger. Ahmad al-Shugairi, a Saudi preacher, describes a misspent youth in California, going to clubs with women and even drinking alcohol, before he returned to Saudi Arabia and Allah. Mr Masoud lost friends to a car accident, a drug overdose and cancer and he endured surgery and his own car crash before deciding to commit his life to God. The disappointment among Mr Gymnastiar’s followers at his second marriage—legal but widely frowned on in Indonesia—lay in the fact that it was at odds with his image as a devoted husband and family man, to many of his female followers at least. Sincerity and personal integrity are crucial to their appeal.
Messrs Khaled, Masoud and Hosny all got their start on Iqraa TV, a Saudi-based religious satellite channel. At one point, about 80% of Iqraa TV’s advertising was reportedly generated by Mr Khaled’s programmes. Mr Khaled has since broken away from Iqraa TV and his programmes are broadcast on a variety of networks, including secular ones such as MBC, a satellite channel based in Dubai.
Until now most of these preachers have resolutely avoided getting involved in politics. But this may be changing. Since Egypt’s revolution, Mr Khaled, for instance, has become more political. In the run up to the constitutional referendum in March he and Mr Masoud joined the “no” campaign along with secular liberals. He has yet to declare any political intentions but if he does, the power of Islamic televangelists could reach a new level.
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