Islamic televangelist Amr Khaled is young, smiling, teaches love and mercy and is so popular he’s credited with inspiring thousands of women — turned off by dour, traditional clerics — to take on the veil.
Now he’s putting his popularity on the line by trying a new role, as a bridge between Islam and the West at a time when many are talking about a clash of civilizations.
The 38-year-old Egyptian raised a storm of controversy when he attended a March 9 dialogue conference of European and Muslim leaders in Copenhagen — the capital of Denmark, which has been the focus of anger across the Islamic world over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad first published in a Danish paper.
Khaled is not the only Muslim religious leader promoting dialogue. But he has become one of the most outspoken.
And he brings the huge fan base of a pop star: young people, women and the middle and upper middle class.
He built his popularity over more than 10 years of preaching, with a style far from that of traditional clerics, who are distinct with their beards and robes and whose sermons often emphasize the demands of Islam and the threat of damnation and hellfire.
In contrast, Khaled is known for his stylish suits and his broad smile. In his sermons, he has avoided politics and stressed God’s mercy, seeking to show how one can be a good Muslim while still enjoying the activities of modern life.
I wish this dude — Good Luck.
My guess is that he recently obtained a very large insurance policy that’ll pay his family millions upon his death.
Yep, his days are numbered. Silly rabbit … Trix are for mullahs.
He must have seen some Jessie Jackson TV coverage. Bridges have been known to fall down and go boom.
It’s sad to see this blog cheer for this guy!!!
I’d assume the venerable Eidard never actually seen this dude in action; if you do you’d realize he’s the epitome of a wolf in sheep’s clothing…
What’s realy sad is that Islam has so sucessfully painted itself into an idological corner blaming America and the West for its own shortcomings that I doubt his sincerity. If he really does belive in peace and love, I feeel sorry for him, because it’s obvoius many of his fellow Muslims believe in anything but and will stop at nothing to sabotage any mutual understanding moderates like him try to establish.
About time someone started a dialogue.
I truly hope that this guy is protected by whatever higher power exists. With a little luck he’ll be the Martin Luthor of the Muslim world. I’ve been saying for years now that if Islam is about peace then the clerics should be preaching peace, denouncing terrorism, and melding into the modern world. Of course, if the current leaders did that they would lose their iron-fisted-grip of power over a large number of people.
Actually — SB — not speaking Arabic, I rely to some extent on an acquaintance who does — and is neither Shi’a nor Sunni .
Change comes from within.
Change comes from within.
Change comes from within.
The only external force that works is chasing internal desires in the outside world. All Christians, Muslims and Jews WILL FAIL in reaching the INTERNAL pot of gold, which is God realization, or Enlightenment. William Blake said it rightly, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” Buddha was a rich prince that had it all. After attaining all in the external world he hit a wall. Then, and only then, can an internal search be started. AND he reached that one too! Christianity, et al, are religions for the poor. The pope goes into poor countries where people are starving, weak and ignorant and makes a devil’s deal: join my church and I will feed, clothe and educate you. IT IS BRIBERY. It is to protect his Vatican, his palace of gold. He needs new recruits to keep his glories. He has to keep up the number of people. Because only the number (in millions-hundreds of millions) in Christian population will keep him in power. He has no other power except in the multitude of sheep he keeps– and slaughters. How people follow an IMPOTENT man is beyond me. He’s not even a man! Even Jesus had sex.
Somehow I am pessimistic about the future of this civilization. We should launch a war on religion. Nuke the Vatican. Kill the priests, bishops. Burn the Bible. Drown their devout followers. First, the Christians, then the Jews, then the Muslims. Kill the idea of religion.
Religion is the virus that will kill humanity.
Good grief, SB — it just sunk in that you referred to me as the “venerable” one. The only other person I know who does that on a regular basis — especially in print — is my bud, Mustafa.
If you have a reference to offer on this dude’s background, please offer it up. Mustafa certainly would have something at hand — except he’s usually too bloody busy working as an online editor.
Good grief david. You violence sickens me. The road to enlightenment is not one paved in the blood of others. You denounce religion for its methods yet want to force everyone to your way with the penalty of death. Let people folow the god/gods they want as long as it doesnt intrude on others. I will keep walking the path of a true catholic, one who believes Jesus meant it when he said “Blessed be the meak”
2xbob, you are not on the road to Enlightenment. That’s my point. You are in a rabbit’s hole behind the brushes with no sight of the road. But you are right. You are not the trouble-maker, rather you are a harmless, “meak” sheep sheparded by impotent men who know nothing about living. And they advise you. Okay, we’ll leave the rank-and-file like you alone. But kill the priests, bishops, pope, evangelics and all religious leaders. If you want to follow the Bible– that’s fine. But do it on your own. You know how to read, right? Why do you need someone to read it to you? To translate it for you? To derive their meaning for you? Do it yourself. Yes, kill the leaders, leave the meak alone.
When you have guts, and the maturity, read
“A Course in Miracles” available in book stores. (http://www.acim.org)
“The Dissappearance of the Universe” by Gary R. Renard is a good introduction to it.
I wish the guy the best.
LibTexan. The West has also painted itself into a cornor. We have our fundalmentalists too. The very basis of Christianity says that only those that follow the Christ will make it into heaven. Supposedly all the rest, including Muslims and Jews, will end up in hell. Then we have those like Roberston wanting to nuke all the camel jockeys and just be done with them.
david
You are going off on a tangent again.
David, you are on a path, I am on a path, we are the same and cannot see past the horizon. I will leave it at that, no use in the blind leading the blind not to mention the wild tan() were going off on. I would love to continue and believe that we will headbutt ideas in the future. Keep walking.
Interesting to see this today….I was reading about Prince Charles being asked to speak at one of the oldest university’s in the Muslim world in Egypt. What Charles has to say is ok, and he has been saying it for years, but the surprise to me was that only rare non-Muslums have ever been asked to speak there and the President of the university is also a moderate, who has denounced 9/11, the London bombings, the Indonesia bombing and the cartoon row. He preaches regularly that Muslums must step into the modern world and build bridges with the west. Amazingly he’s still alive also. It seems that a lot of the more moderate voices one hears from the Muslum world seem to come from Egypt. I wonder if there is a reason for that.
David…..sorry dude, your to violent for me. What good does it do for me to change from the world I know full of violence to your world of the unknown, also full of violence? As near as I can tell, your as violent in your belief as the radical Muslums, so explain to me why you would be preferable. I know where they are coming from, even if I think it’s absurd, but I get the distinct impression that if you were able to rid the world of the objects of your hatered(clergy of any kind), that it wouldn’t be long before you found a new focus for your violent hatred, then another and another ad infintum.
I have no idea what could cause someone like you to hate a group of people(the clergy) who mostly really want to do good. But whatever it was David, it must have been bad.
Mr. Fusion….I owe you an apology. I said that the tapes released showed that Saddam may have shipped the WMD’s or the material for them out of Iraq. Well, today they released some more of the translated video’s and tapes of meetings with Saddam and his cabinet, and they show Saddam frustrated because the inspectors won’t believe that he no longer had the weapons or the factorys. Even though he had allowed to to inspect. I know this still dosen’t mean he was innocent, but it shows that maybe he really didn’t have them. In which case, the intell communities of the west should be called the Imbicile Community instead. It said on the Fox news story I read that he may have actually got rid of them as early as 1992.
Tangents set you free. Take a rope with a heavy object tied to the end and swirl it in circles. It just keeps going around and around. When it breaks FREE it follows a line trajectory that is tangent to the circular path where it broke off.
joshua, there is nothing wrong with killing. When cancer cells inhibit your regular cells from performing correctly you kill the cancerous ones because they are going to kill YOU. Religion is a cancer too. I don’t say kill with hatred. I say kill with love. But killing is killing. I, personally, can imagine killing all the relgious leaders with complete love in mind. It is not something to be proud of, but it is something that has to be done. I cannot do it alone. And since no one else has the wisdom to do it with love, then it must be done by inciting hatred in others. If I am angry it is because I grew up Catholic and I now see the lies that is the pope’s church. There is something about a lie that is so abhorrent to God’s nature that it shudders me- violently so.
The difference between me and Muslims is that I go only after the leaders, not the innocent followers. Followers follow. Killing off the old leaders and replacing them with new intelligent leaders is what I’m after. Followers will follow the new leaders. I leave the women, children and bystander alone.
Kill the leaders: pope, bishops, priests, evangelics…
David, calm down, you are scaring the hell out of the kids.
if u wanna know more about this guy , I’ve found his site
http://www.amrkhaled.net.