Abd al-Hamid Kishk

Egyptian Islamic scholar, activist and author

Abdal Hamid Kishk (عبد الحميد كشك; March 10, 1933 – December 6, 1996) was an Egyptian preacher, scholar of Islam, activist, and author. He was a graduate of Al Azhar University in Cairo and was known for his humour, popular sermons, religious books and for his outspoken stance against injustice and oppression in the world.

Abdal Hamid Kishk was born in 1933 in Shubra Khit, a small village near Alexandria, Egypt. His father died 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 sight. However, rather than demoralize him, the loss of his sight encouraged him to learn more and persevere further. He graduated as a scholar from the faculty of Usoul al Din in Azhar and was appointed as an Imam, giving khutbas throughout Egypt. A French scholar noted:

In the last years of the Sadat's presidency, it was impossible to walk the streets of Cairo without hearing [Kishk's] stentorian voice. Climb into a collective service taxi and the driver is listening to one of Sheikh Kishk's recorded sermons They listen to Kishk in Cairo, in Casablanca, and in the North African district of Marseilles. A Saudi funded magazine has dubbed him `the star of Islamic preaching` none commands his incomparable vocal cords, his panoramic Muslim culture, his phenomenal capacity for improvisation, and his acerbic humour in criticizing infidel regimes, military dictatorship, the peace treaty with Israel, or the complicity of al Azhar So great was his fame that the Ministry of Waqf had to build several annexes to the mosque to accommodate the Friday crowds. In 1981, however, even these were insufficient to shelter the approximately 10,000 people who regularly attended. Kishk's audience grew across the Arab world with the distribution of over 2,000 of his sermons in audio cassettes. He was arrested again in 1981 shortly before 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. His cassette tapes continued to be widely available thereafter, but the mosque in Cairo where he preached was converted into a public health center.

As a preacher at 'Ain al Hayat mosque he condemned 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."

Kishk said there was punishment for homosexual acts prescribed in the Quran, regarding the hadith that mentioned it as poorly attested. He did not approve of such acts.

Kishk wrote "Our Response to Children of the Alley", attacking the controversial novel of Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz for "violating Muslim sacred belief" and "supplanting monotheism with communism and scientific materialism". Mahfouz had won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature, (the only Arab ever to be awarded that Prize) for one of his "best known works", (Children of Gebelawi).