Preachers of modern age
In an old article whose title was ‘New preachers or new businessmen?’, Qatari colleague Abdel Hamid Al-Ansari had earlier asked what preachers such as Salman Al-Awda, Al-Qarni, Omar AbdelKafi, Wajdi Ghoneim and Amr Khaled, the richest among them had offered to their societies.
The truth is that they did not offer anything to their homelands or their nation, nor did they provide critical cognitive solutions to the main issues that challenge all our societies, other than one of them boasting --Tariq Suwaidan -that today’s preachers manage their da’awah (preaching) as merchants manage their businesses.
The day I read Al-Ansari’s article, I happened to see a lecture given by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood preacher Wajdi Ghoneim, in which he talked about some etiquette that a Muslim should have with regard to eating, drinking, entering the bathroom and yawning.
He said it is important not to stay in the bathroom for a long time, not because sitting, for example, has harmful health effects and a negative impact on hemorrhoids (piles), or for fear of exposure to diseases due to microbes that multiply in the bathroom, not to mention the unpleasant odor, and the bathroom, according to him is Satan’s house and we should not stay in his house for long, and we should hasten to leave it, taking care that we put the right leg forward when we exit.
When he talked about yawning, he said the mouth should be covered with the palm of the bands, and this is nice but the reason he gave lacks logic, taste and politeness. Instead of only saying that it is the etiquette of yawning to cover the mouth so that whoever is in front of you does not see your open mouth, or due to bad smell, he justifies his request to the mouth is to prevent the devil from urinating in your mouth.
These are some of the discoveries of the ‘new preachers’ and these are their means of achieving wealth and competing with movie and television stars, and creating stardom for themselves.
The truth is that they are not blamed for their actions as much as governments that allow those with such mentalities and corrupt logic to deliver speeches and corrupt the mentalities of their listeners, the majority of whom are young people and preoccupy them with trifles that lack credibility.
The question is, how can some believe that a religious party like the Muslim Brotherhood, to which the majority of ‘businessmen preachers’ belong can assume the leadership of a modern state, while it is with such backwardness and intellectual superficiality and in a complete absence of methodology or philosophy which will be followed in the rule other than repeating the ambiguities and citing religious texts that have nothing to do with the philosophy of state management?