CAIRO — The Islamic preacher slipped on a pair of shorts and talked about the Koran while playing beach volleyball, eating barbecue and joking about hot cars and palaces in paradise.
If the West were to dream up its version of an ideal imam, he might look and sound like Mostafa Hosni, a 30-year-old former Nestle accountant who's comfortable in argyle sweaters and hip to self-help. A video of his seaside sermon posted on his website was a cross between a travel brochure and a spiritual quest for the BlackBerry generation.
"We decided to leave the city and go somewhere with a sea, clear sky and mountains so that we can meditate about almighty God's greatness," Hosni says with a gentle surf behind him. "It is hard for one to meditate about that in the crowded city. In fact, we want to draw some link between the beauty of the Earth and that of paradise."
The West's picture of the Muslim preacher is often caricature: a bearded man in a tunic bellowing ancient verses and spinning asides about American imperialism. But that icon is changing as the image and message of mainstream Islam are softened to appeal to upwardly mobile, twentysomething followers less concerned with dogma than bleeping out life's annoyances on the way to success.
"I try to preach with simple language, not the language of scholars," said Hosni, who has a weekly TV talk show and whose sermons are sold on CDs in front of Cairo University. "People are attracted to new preachers like me because they want religious solutions to daily problems, not someone talking to them about the afterlife."
Hosni's path is similar to that of other popular TV preachers, such as Amr Khaled and Moez Masoud, charismatic men who started in commerce and were eventually drawn to religious fervor and a desire to repackage Islam. This brand of preacher has not eclipsed the influence of imams and clerics, but it has forced traditional holy men to reckon with the power of the Internet and the allure of simplifying centuries-old texts to fit modern times.
The new preachers are an intriguing blend of enthusiasm and calculation. Hosni is casual but pious, answering questions with schoolboy earnestness, careful about how he might be perceived. He is as adept at deciphering the market penetration of satellite TV as he is at weaving metaphors with verses of the Koran.
