Arab West Report Egyptian press summaries and media research for dialogue

Those monitoring the religious media will note that each channel, person, or group of persons has a different religious reference. Some preachers even have no reference at all, Tantawī writes. Examples of this latter group are those described as 'the new preachers', such as ‘Amr Khalid, Mustafá Husnīi, Khālid al-Jindī, and Muhammad Hidāyah, who have no genuine scientifically religious approach, and who have no religious grounding to what they haphazardly say beyond their claim to represent 'middle Islam' or 'enlightened Islam'.

 

These are flashy terms that have no real basis and fool no one, Tantawī writes. He challenges any one of such preachers to identify the basis from which they derive such expressions.

 

Others select matter from hadith, according to their own criteria for the soundness of such hadiths. Those who represent the salafī trend, restrict their understanding of religion to the views held by the Prophet's comrades (sahābah) and those who followed them. Anything else is unsound. They are thus limited in their interpretations to the first centuries of Islam, and that can in no way be regarded as a scientific approach.

 

What many people don't realize is that those of the salafī trend differ in their interpretation of the al-salaf al-sālih (good ancestors') understanding of religion, and thus disagree on various issues and jurisprudential provisions, Tantawī says.

 

Among the other abundant currents in the religious media is the Muslim Brotherhood, who are more active and open than the salafīs, this in furtherance of their political agenda.

 

Tantawī also criticizes the writer Jamāl al-Bannā, whom he says has adopted the idea of modernizing religion through relying on the Qur’ān as the only correct source of Islam. He too would be at a loss to identify the scientific and intellectual referential system for his understanding of the Qur’ān.