Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in 

Islam (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992); 

Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam and the Nation: Gender 

and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, N.J.: Princ-

eton University Press, 1995); Huda Shaarawi, Harem 

Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist (1879–1924)

(London: Virago Press, 1986).

Shaarawi, Muhammad al-

 

(1911–1998)  

Muslim teacher and television preacher

Al-Shaykh al-Shaarawi became famous in the 

1970s as a master of q

Uran

 commentary on tele-

vision. It was not so much the profundity of his 

exegesis that was attractive as it was the simplicity 

of his style, which made his ideas accessible to the 

wider public. By the time he died in 1998, he had 

developed a huge following, where his sermons 

were broadcast on television both in Egypt and 

across the Arabic-speaking world.

Shaarawi played an important part in the a 

wave of religious revival in Egypt in the 1970s. 

During the previous period, until the death of 

J

amal

  a

bd

 

al

  n

asir

 in 1970, Egypt’s government 

had been intent on modernization and seculariza-

tion, which led to attempts to domesticate and 

restrict the public role of religion. At the same 

time, Nasir had ample reason to fear the challenge 

posed by Islamists, especially those in the m

Uslim

K  614