The faces of Islam A born-again Muslim since his teens, Amr Khaled's message has chimed with millions across the Middle East, writes Mary Fitzgerald in Cairo
The cameras are just about to roll when Islam's most fashionable TV preacher decides he wants some cushions behind him rearranged. He prefers to sit up straight instead of reclining, he explains to the studio assistant at Egypt's Media Production City.
Cushions duly positioned to his liking, Amr Khaled faces the camera with his trademark smile and the programme begins.
One of three guests invited to talk about values, Khaled soon dominates the discussion. "We are on a bus without a steering wheel and nobody seems to be concerned," he says, eyes widening, and voice rising.
Khaled speaks as if giving one of his famous sermons, calling for a strong work ethic and encouraging young people to play their part. Each point is emphasised with a flurry of gesticulating punctuated by a long stare down the camera lens.
Heavily reminiscent of American TV evangelists, Amr Khaled's flamboyant style is something of a novelty to Muslims used to dour, bearded sheikhs warning of divine retribution.
"A good preacher should be more compassionate than disciplinary," he once said. "My main concern is to make young people love religion instead of fearing it."
A born-again Muslim since his teens, Khaled's distinctive seize-the-day message emphasising personal salvation and piety has chimed with millions across the Middle East and throughout the wider Muslim world. In just a few years, the charismatic 39-year-old former accountant has gone from amateur preaching at private homes and clubs in his native Egypt, to commanding the kind of adulation usually reserved for pop stars.
Cassettes and CDs of his sermons and videos featuring emotional testimonials regularly sell out in shops, markets and street stalls. Fans pack mosques, halls and even stadiums to hear him preach, many moved to tears by his impassioned retelling of stories from the Prophet Muhammad's life.
In some Arab countries, mobile phone companies offer Amr Khaled mini-sermons via text message. Amrkhaled.net, his slickly designed website, is the most popular Arabic website in the world and offers translations in eight languages. Last year, it received 26 million hits.
Spend any amount of time with young Muslims, particularly in the Arab world, and his name will invariably come up.
Ask a teenage Muslim girl her reasons for wearing hijab and chances are she will mention Amr Khaled as a factor.
Rawia al Ghazzawi, a university student from Irbid in northern Jordan, was 16 when she first saw Khaled on TV. "He was so different, he really stood out," she says. "He didn't attack or criticise or threaten. His message was very positive.
"He talked about changing your life for the better using Islam, and how you could make a difference in lots of little ways. I thought he was wonderful."
Rawia started praying five times a day and decided to veil for the first time. Why? Because Amr Khaled said so.
She is not alone. Hundreds of thousands have taken up his challenge to be better Muslims, participating in campaigns to collect clothes for the poor, shun smoking and alcohol, plant trees, and write letters to record companies protesting raunchy music videos. He once asked fans to walk a marathon before his next TV sermon. Many did. Why? Because Amr Khaled said so.
"If he was like the other sheikhs, young people wouldn't listen or even notice him," says Ahmed (25), from Cairo. "He is like us. He knows our lives, knows our problems and knows what issues are important for us. He treats us like he's our brother." Such is his level of popularity and influence that one Egyptian newspaper compared him to the Pied Piper and wondered where he would lead his young fans.
Sitting in his Cairo office, Khaled looks nothing like the stereotypical Islamic preacher, something that is undoubtedly part of his appeal. Dapper in a grey suit and neatly trimmed moustache, he offers tea and talks about going to Berlin for the World Cup final. He mentions a visit to Ireland last year during which he gave lectures and launched a drugs awareness programme at the Islamic Cultural Centre in Clonskeagh, Dublin.
Pondering his personal philosophy a few minutes later, he seems to slip into a reverie, staring into the distance and referring to himself in the third person. "Amr Khaled's message is to encourage participation in development," he intones. "Economic development, health, education, employment - it's about development through faith."
Khaled starts drawing the first of many diagrams to emphasise his point. "I ask people to be part of this society, to be positive about their country. We're talking about values. We're talking about being honest and positive through your faith."
It sounds at times like the teasing out of a political manifesto, but Khaled baulks at the suggestion that he may be considering a career in politics.
Yes, he admits, the focus has shifted from just preaching. His plan now involves building civil society in countries like Egypt and encouraging the idea of coexistence with the West. "We transfer the energy of faith and channel it into helping development," he says, pointing out that faith for faith's sake can sometimes lead to extremism. "It's about harnessing faith to build your future."
Khaled attributes much of this change to time he spent completing a PhD in Britain after he was exiled from Egypt four years ago. The Egyptian authorities, alarmed at the huge crowds he was drawing at Cairo's mosques, made it clear he had to stop preaching or leave. One persistent rumour at the time was that his influence had crept too close to the secular regime: President Hosni Mubarak's daughter-in-law was alleged to have donned the veil after listening to Khaled's tapes. Now back in Egypt for the foreseeable future, Khaled declines to discuss the circumstances of his departure, preferring to dwell on his new vision for the ummah (community of believers).
"My view of the West and the ideas of coexistence and positive integration have evolved and matured," he says. "I want to build bridges." When it comes to tensions between Islam and the West, Khaled does not shy away from telling his followers that Muslims must bear some responsibility.
He stresses that the West is not a homogenous entity bent on attacking Islam and that dialogue is better than confrontation. In one TV series last year, he drew on the example of the Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet, he said "respected the right of citizenship . . . Muslims living in the West should similarly respect the rights and duties of citizenship."
Khaled's attempts at bridge-building have proved controversial. Last March, he organised a conference in Copenhagen to discuss the impact of the Danish cartoons debacle, provoking harsh criticism from some Muslim scholars and clerics who accused him of kowtowing to the West.
Some commentators branded him a traitor, others an opportunist who had overreached his abilities. "I realised before I went that the traditional schools would be very angry," he says. "But I did it because I believe in dialogue. I had been talking about positive integration and coexistence. This was the test to actually do something instead of just talking about it."
Khaled has long fended off critics. Clerics deplore his lack of formal training, accusing him of peddling a superficial, feel-good understanding of religion. Some have dismissed his work as "air-conditioned Islam" and "da'wa [ preaching] lite" for a privileged audience seeking to Islamicise their westernised lifestyles.
Other detractors point out Khaled's backing from Saudi billionaires and claim that while his style may be modern and hip, it is nothing more than a shrewd marketing ploy to convey a message that is essentially traditional and conservative, particularly when it comes to the veil.
Khaled's followers include a high percentage of women, many of whom say they appreciate the way he emphasises the importance of women in Islamic history.
He tells his audiences that the first convert was a woman, and that Islam gave women the right to manage their own finances long before the West. In his hugely popular hijab sermon, Khaled compares a woman's body to a pearl that needs a protective shell and tells his followers hijab is obligatory.
To stop wearing hijab, he says on the tape, is "the biggest sin, the biggest sin, the biggest sin". Addressing Muslim women who say they want to be more western and not wear the veil, he thunders: "Who respects women more? Islam or the ones who cannot even sell a box of matches without painting a half-naked woman on it?
"Are they the ones who have respected the woman or exploited her? Has Islam not respected the woman and covered her and liberated her from exploitation?"
Reminded of this, Khaled smiles. "Hijab is part of Islam but not everything. We need to respect women with hijab and without. My own mother and sister did not wear hijab until four years ago. I didn't have a problem with it," he says. "I'm working with some Muslim women who are not wearing hijab.
"Islam is not only the women with hijab. Why are you westerners always focusing on the hijab issue?" He smiles again, warming to his theme. "When we talk about positive integration and coexistence, it doesn't mean that you will always accept all my agenda, or that I will accept all of yours.
"Too many people in the West look at Islam as the barrier between us and them and they think the best thing is to try and delete that barrier," he says. "If you do that it will lead to more problems and more extremism. The idea is to make Muslims part of western society without deleting their culture. It's about saying to them - you are Muslims and we respect your religion but at the same time you must be part of us. That is the only way."
maryfitzgerald@irish-times.ie
Mary Fitzgerald is the winner of the first Douglas Gageby Fellowship for her journalistic project on the faces of Islam. Her reports appear every Friday.