Muslim preaching has been central in forming public opinion, building grassroots organizations, and developing leadership cadres for the wider Islamist agenda. Based on in-depth field research in Egypt, Patrick Gaffney focuses on the preacher and the sermon as the single most important medium for propounding the message of Islam. He draws on social history, political commentary, and theological sources to reveal the subtle connections between religious rhetoric and political dissent.

Many of the sermons discussed were given during the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and Gaffney attempts to describe this militant movement and to compare it with official Islam. Finally, Gaffney presents examples of the sermons, so readers can better understand the full range of contemporary Islamic expression.

Patrick D. Gaffney is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame.

"Few academic writers succeed as richly as Patrick Gaffney has in The Prophet's Pulpit. His study of Islamic preaching in Egypt, focused on the provincial town of Minya, has ramifications far beyond his stated topic. Gaffney's analysis illuminates both popular Islam and Islamic extremism. His extensive comparisons and multiple methods show both his extraordinary learning and his desire to make all possible use of his research material. . . . His extraordinary familiarity with Minya and the personalities involved, as well as this knowledge of both classical and colloquial Arabic, makes his work extremely fruitful."—American Academy

"A nuanced ethnographic account of Islamic preaching that neither fixates on fundamentalist politics nor shies from the issue of how the state seeks to incorporate Islam into its overall identity. Instead, [Gaffney] offers an unusually well-contextualized view of Islamic ideology in practice by bringing its discursive contexts centrally into focus."—Middle East Studies Association Bulletin

"Astounding. . . . A book that lays bare the circumstance of piety and resistance, national politics and regional accommodation in a provincial town of Upper Egypt. It is a chilling tale of the author's persistence against bureaucratic inertia and roadblocks."—Choice

"Gaffney provides a rich account of the social role of a preacher in Islam, and of the various modalities of authority that he can appeal to in Egypt. . . . Rich in detail, well organized, and well written."—Contemporary Sociology

"Gaffney is to be lauded for his ability to present clearly the details of the local origins of the current violent confrontation between government and opposition."—Middle East Journal

"Excellent."—Reader's Review