Storytelling, Sincerity, and Islamic Televangelism in Egypt

Abstract

In 2001, the first episode of what was to become a hit show — Kalam min al-Qalb ( Words from the Heart ) — aired on a privately owned Egyptian satellite channel. Amr Khaled, at the time a relatively unknown da’iyia (‘caller to Islam’, pl. duah ) who was also a practising accountant, was the host of the show. Interweaving Qur’anic stories of the prophets with the personal stories of ordinary Muslims struggling to be more pious, the show inaugurated what has since become an extraordinarily popular genre of Islamic television programming. Indeed, Amr Khaled’s fame soared as the show attracted an increasingly vocal viewership. Thousands of young people began attending his Friday mosque sermons in one of Cairo’s new satellite suburbs and his website received more than 3 million hits per month, making it one of the most visited sites in the nation by the end of 2001. As 2002 drew to a close, however, the Mubarak regime banned Khaled from preaching in public, leading the da’iyia to leave the country. 1 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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