ABD AL-HAMID KISHK (SHAYKH)(1933–1996)

ABD AL-HAMID KISHK (SHAYKH)(1933–1996)
A pioneering “cassette preacher” of the 1970s,
Abd al-Hamid Kishk was born in the Egyptian Delta village ofShubrakhut, the son of a small merchant. Early on he experiencedvision impairment, and lost his sight entirely as a youngteen. He memorized the Quran by age twelve, attendedreligious schools in Alexandria and Cairo, then enrolled at al-Azhar University. He graduated in 1962, first in his class, butrather than an expected nomination to the teaching faculty,he was appointed imam at a Cairo mosque.Kishk ran afoul of the Nasser regime in 1965. He claimedhe was instructed to denounce Sayyid Qutb, refused, andsubsequently was arrested and tortured in prison. In the early1970s, cassette recordings of his sermons and lessons beganto proliferate throughout Egypt; by the late 1970s he wasarguably the most popular preacher in the Arab world.Attendance at his mosque skyrocketed, reaching 100,000 forFriday sermons by the early 1980s. In September 1981 he wasarrested as part of Anwar al-Sadat’s crackdown on politicalopponents, and was in prison when Sadat was assassinated.Upon his release he regained his following. He published hisautobiography, The Story of My Days, in 1986. He died adecade later, in 1996.BIBLIOGRAPHYJansen, Johannes J. G. The Neglected Duty: The Creed of Sadat’sAssassins and Islamic Resurgence in the Middle East. NewYork and London: Macmillan, 1986.Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet andPharaoh. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1993.Joel Gordon