Abd al-Hamid Kishk
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Sheikh Abd al-Hamid Kishk (Arabic:عبد الحميد كشك) (b.1933- December 6, 1996) was a well-known Egyptian preacher, activist, author and scholar of Islam who graduated from the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
[edit] Life
Abd al-Hamid Kishk was born in 1933 in Shibrakheet, a small village near Alexandria, Egypt. His father passed away before Abd al-Hamid reached schooling age. He joined one of the schools of Azhar and by the age of 8 he had memorized the Quran. It was at this time that he was inflicted by an illness which took his eye sight. He graduated as a scholar from the faculty of Usoul al Din in Azhar and was appointed as an Imam, giving khutbas (speeches) throughout Egypt.
[edit] Political Activities
Around 1964 he took up the minbar of 'Ain al-Hayat mosque in Cairo as his platform and started to speak vociferously about the social conditions in Egypt and the suppression of the Islamic Movement. This did not stop him from having distinctly spiritual approach to life, something which his speeches reflect. He was a dissident under the Nasser regime, refusing to sanction the government's execution of Sayyid Qutb or assert compatibility between Islam and socialism. He was boycotted by the official media under the Anwar Sadat regime (1970-1981), but cassette tapes of his sermons were widely distributed all over Egypt and the Arab world. Kishk held political views opposed to the modern bureaucratic state, and emphasized personal and private piety in his speeches. According to Kishk, the greater jihad is a continuous struggle aimed at subduing one’s baser nature and attuning oneself to Allah’s moral standards. It is the basis for personal moral development, creating pious and philanthropic activism, promoting justice and prosperity in society, while combating ignorance, injustice and oppression. As a result of this greater jihad, says Kishk, Islam "heals those societies which follows its guidance and are built on consciences which have been awakened and hearts which have been illuminated by the light of belief."[1] He was imprisoned after Sadat's assassination, but was released by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1982 under the condition that he end his career as a public activist. However, his cassette tapes are still freely available, but the mosque in Cairo where he preached was transformed into a public health center.[2]
He was criticized by the Egyptian writer and intellectual Farag Foda for "telling his audience that Muslims who entered paradise would enjoy eternal erections and the company of young boys draped in earrings and necklaces," and promising them "an eternity of blissful pederasty."[3] By way of retribution for this indiscretion, Farag Foda was later assassinated.
[edit] Notes
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