I missed this The New York Times piece when it came out over the holidays, but think it important enough to point to even now. Satellite TV is proving an important element in both the propagation of Islam and in the spread of its various interpretations. It can be used to disseminate restrictive, archaic, even boneheadedly stupid interpretations, as MEMRI TV frequently points out. But it can also be used to spread a more moderate message, as in the case of preachers like the Egyptian Amr Khaled or, as here, the Saudi Ahmed al-Shugairi.

What’s most important about this, I think, is that for the first time a generation of Muslims is able to hear—if it chooses to hear—a wide variety of voices defining and defending Islam. No more are they limited to the reasoning of their local imam as the sole voice of religious authority. Admittedly, in the past those who interested in the study of Islam did have ways to widen their horizons, if they had the time and money, or sponsorship. There was a great deal of movement by religious scholars to various centers for the study of Islam in general or the Quran in particular.

Now, however, those centers, in a way, come to the individual through satellite TV.

On the linked page are links to an interesting interview with the writer and to a video clip of an interview with/about al-Shugairi.

Preaching Moderate Islam and Becoming a TV Star
ROBERT F. WORTH

JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — As Ahmad al-Shugairi took the stage, dressed in a flowing white gown and headdress, he clutched a microphone and told his audience that he had no religious training or titles: “I am not a sheik.”

But over the next two hours, he worked the crowd as masterfully as any preacher, drawing rounds of uproarious laughter and, as he recalled the Prophet Muhammad’s death, silent tears. He spoke against sectarianism. He made pleas for women to be treated as equals. He talked about his own life — his seven wild years in California, his divorce, his children — and gently satirized Arab mores.

When he finished, the packed concert hall erupted in a wild standing ovation. Members of his entourage soon bundled him through the thick crowd of admirers to a back door, where they rushed through the darkness to a waiting car.

“Elvis has left the building,” Mr. Shugairi joked, in English, as he relaxed into his seat.

Mr. Shugairi is a rising star in a new generation of “satellite sheiks” whose religion-themed television shows have helped fuel a religious revival across the Arab world. Over the past decade, the number of satellite channels devoted exclusively to religion has risen from 1 to more than 30, and religious programming on general interest stations, like the one that features Mr. Shugairi’s show, has soared. Mr. Shugairi and others like him have succeeded by appealing to a young audience that is hungry for religious identity but deeply alienated from both politics and the traditional religious establishment, especially in the fundamentalist forms now common in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
…

Al-Shugairi’s popularity is encouraging, but not all young Muslims are looking for a more moderate Islam. The NYT article is part of a series, Generation Faithful, that takes a look at how young Muslims confront the world and their faith. It’s certainly worth your while to read the various pieces at the link.