While I disagrees profoundly with many of the opinions of Sheikh Hatem in the book who is used by Ibrahim Eissa as a mouthpiece for h At first this book seemed particularly cowardly as it presented the issue of a Muslim converting to Christianity a massive taboo in any Muslim country and then seemingly dismissed it as a psychiatric issue | and ofc the arabic is very good too, written so well Mixed impression |
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While I disagrees profoundly with many of the opinions of Sheikh Hatem in the book who is used by Ibrahim Eissa as a mouthpiece for his more controversial opinions, a deconstruction of the 'television sheikh' in egypt and the stifling force of the government | On the one hand I enjoyed a refreshing plot |
While I had issues with the portrayal of copts in the book I realise that Ibrahim Eissa was already too brazen in his critical discussion of the Islamic clerics and government; any perceived flattery of the copts would be a further slight top far | I could have started with Naguib Mahfouz, but decided on something more modern |
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There is no sense of judgement and preaching, hence the book never assaults your own beliefs and instead provides a wide pool of thoughts and ideas, all researched very well | I have to admit, it was the title and modernist cover of the Televangelist that attracted me first, then the blurb on the back had me sold - it sounded bot So i'm living in Egypt and never having read an Egyptian author, I was spoilt for choice of contemporary Arabic authors at the American University Bookstore in Cairo! The protagonist, Sheik Hatem el-Shenawi, is a bit like an Islamic version of Dr Phil |
I wan't that excited about the series of events unfolding at the end as I didn't really feel like the book needed to go that extra mile and present the "punch line.
29I wan't that excited about the series of events unfolding at the end as I didn't really feel like the book needed to go that extra mile and present the "punch line | The topic is timely, and the criticism of society's ignorance when it comes to understanding it's own religion is dead on |
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it may be unfair to compare, but this work is the closets of the contemporary to Naguib Mahfouz's and to international fiction standards |