The Prophet's Pulpit: Islamic Preaching in Contemporary Egypt

Gaffney has great idea in his book. Write perhaps the only work on one of the most salient Islamic practices throughout history in a contemporary, quickly changing Muslim Society. Gaffney builds a basic typology of three types of preachers: the traditional scholar and ethical teacher, the sufi priest-magician, and the militant holy warrior. He analyzes sermons from all three and the religious aura and authority they carry with them in society. Gaffney demonstrates the authority that the preacher embodies in the larger society are closely connected with mundane institutions and organization of the society. He argues this both in the context of Cairo and Minya [which much more rural than Cairo]. Many of the sermons discussed were given during the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and through them Gaffney traces the development of this militant movement and compares it with official Islam. Overall, this analysis cover ~2 decades of field experience, in the 70s and 80s. Finally, Gaffney presents and analyzes three actual sermons in their entirety, transcribed from recordings made in the mosques. Some of his insights are profound but I found myself annoyed by common debunking of the preachers' sermons. The author is a catholic minister [though also a professor at Notre Dame], and there are moments where there was a bit of unnecessary digression into Christian apology. This was frustrating insofar as I was more interested in an analysis of the symbolic appeal containned in the preachers' sermon rather than a correction of the factual errors contained therein. Nonetheless, it was an interesting approach and the first of its kind. I believe it would be fortuitous to do more studies of its kind.