THE MEDIA LINE: A new channel is paving the way for a new generation of Islamic TV.
[Cairo, Egypt] The man on the television appears enraged, talking fast, yelling and demanding Muslims to follow the “right path of faith.” Not too far, at a nearby table, two young Egyptian girls, shrouded in their colorful hijabs – headscarves - watch the white clad sheikh speak. They turn to each other and their glances say it all: this is not what they are looking for in Islamic television.
The café, with its Islamic preachers blaring on most Fridays and often at other times during the week, have become more commonplace in an Egypt growing progressively more conservative by the day, but there are many who are fighting against this current, especially young veiled women.
Heba is a 22-year-old recent college graduate who studied media. She has worn the veil since she was 18-years-old, but these diatribes of elderly preachers is too much, she says, highlighting the growing gulf that exists in Egypt.
“I just don’t like how angry they sound and how judgmental they have become,” she told The Media Line, asking the waiter to change the channel. Her friend Sara nodded in agreement.
Both are part of the growing trend among 20-something Egyptian women looking for a more restrained approach to Islamic television. >>> Joseph Mayton | Monday, September 28, 2009
