A perhaps too-authoritative title for a post that is much more of the beginning of an exploration than an unequivocal pronouncement. I came across a number of readings over the past weekend that have piqued my interest in the subject. The first was a forthcoming essay (by a for-now-unnamed author) on neo-authoritarianism in Egypt and the second a 2003 thesis by Lindsey Wise on the “new preachers”, in which she explores the phenomenon of a new crop of lay preachers of Islam. Lastly, and, most especially, an article in Le Monde dipomatique on the same phenomenon, though much more brief, and with a stronger focus on the ways in which these preachers have enlisted not just the outward trappings of modernity, but the specific modes of articulation of business management. (more…)