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The Layalina Review

VOL. V NO. 2, January 02-January 15, 2009

Tuning into Faith

Ahmad al-Shugairi, a rising star among the new televangelists in the Middle East, takes a peaceful approach, preaching a tolerant Islam and denouncing sectarianism, describes Robert F. Worth for the New York Times. Over the past decade, the number of satellite channels devoted exclusively to religion has risen from one to more than thirty, and religious programming on general interest stations, including the channel that features Mr. Shugairi’s show, has soared.

Shugairi offers young people seeking a religious identity outside of the political and conservative framework provided by Egypt and Saudi Arabia a spiritual platform with which they can identify. The key element is that "Mr. Shugairi effortlessly mixes deep religious commitment with hip, playful humor."

In his efforts to promote religious moderation, he allows for bridging the divide between "East and West, pleasure and duty, the rigor of the mosque and the baffling freedoms of the internet."

The field of Muslims televangelists has expanded greatly according to Worth. With each new figure being broadcast, internet sites and Facebook groups are created where tens of thousands of fans trade epiphanies and links to YouTube clips of their favorite preachers.

Mr. Shugairi is unavoidably rebuked by both sides, argues Worth. To the conservatives he is a puppet to the West while to the liberals he is Islamizing the secular elite of the Arab world. Some observers fear that the growing prevalence of Islam on the airwaves and the internet could make moderates like Mr. Shugairi stepping stones toward more extreme figures, "who are never more than a mouse-click or a channel-surf away."

Hussein Amin, a professor at the American University in Cairo, explains that since there is no one to correct or challenge these 'sheikhs,’ "so many who were liberals are now conservatives and those who were conservatives are now radicals."

However, many maintain that shows like Mr. Shugairi’s help to combat radicalism and have inspired viewers to see that "Islam is not about living in caves and being isolated from the world. Islam is international. It is modern. It is tolerant."

Worth explains that young Muslims have inherited a world painfully divided between what they hear from the clerics and what they see on satellite television and the internet. "This is especially true in Saudi Arabia, with its powerful and deeply conservative religious establishment," he comments. But Mr. Shugairi's program brings a new balance as he shows "a middle way in everything, in relationships, in working, in fasting, in prayer."