Islam's Up-to-Date Televangelist

"I want you to imagine having lived in the U.S. for 30 years, and you died and four of your friends follow the funeral procession, talking about you. One of them says, 'He did absolutely nothing,' " he said, his eyes sweeping the room. "Alternatively, imagine this: Your non-Muslim neighbors are following the procession and they say, 'America has lost a great person today.' "

In his 50-episode "Life-Makers" series of television lectures, Khaled presses for proactive good deeds and self-help in the Arab world as well, from teaching the illiterate to fixing potholes. In a YouTube short, he advocates hard work at school, in exercise and with charity.

He has been quick to publicly condemn terrorism, including the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the 2005 bombings of the London Underground.

If his message about practical daily matters is unconventional, his path to the Muslim ministry borders on the bizarre. Khaled was working with Pepsi and Colgate at the biggest accounting agency in Egypt in 1997 when a friend asked him to substitute for a local preacher who couldn't make an engagement at the Egyptian Shooting Club. It was a life-changing request. His comfortable folksiness led to invitations at other clubs, then theaters and, finally, for his own television show. Now he is an enterprise as well as a ministry.

Khaled, who turned 40 last week, is married with two young boys. He is widely criticized by clerics for having no serious religious training and speaking in simplistic terms. He is working on a doctorate in Islamic studies at the University of Wales, which has only fueled criticism about his Westernized Islam. Yet Khaled's following challenges both political and religious leaders in the Middle East worried about both the emergence of politicized Islam and a younger generation of leaders offering alternative worldviews.

Egypt became so nervous about his growing flock that his appearances were monitored by government security officials. As even secular parts of Egyptian society began showing up to hear him, he came under pressure not to speak in public at all. Khaled fled first to Lebanon, then to London. Even then, his appeal did not diminish.

"His popularity in the Arab world is unrivaled," wrote Akbar Ahmed, chairman of Islamic Studies at American University, in his recent book "Journey Into Islam," based on polls he took in the Islamic world. "He is able to instill pride and happiness in people for being Muslim and has helped strengthen faith in Islam at a time when it is thought to be under assault by Westernization, secularism and nationalism."

Khaled's fame spread to the West after the controversial 2005 publication of 12 Danish cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad, which sparked protests in Europe and Asia and more than 100 deaths. Khaled organized a conference on coexistence in Denmark four months later, a move widely condemned by leading clerics.

"I took about 40 people and I said, 'We came to talk. We feel bad that you didn't respect our prophet. We didn't come to say we are against you. We came for dialogue,' " Khaled said in a lecture at Georgetown University.

Youssef al-Qaradawi, a fiery octogenarian cleric trained at Egypt's famed al-Azhar seminary, is Khaled's main rival among televangelists. Unlike Khaled, Qaradawi has enormous standing among Muslim clerics. On al-Jazeera, where he is broadcast, Qaradawi rebuked the younger Egyptian for the Denmark conference. "You have to have common ground to have dialogue with your enemy," Qaradawi said. "But after insulting what is sacred to me, they should apologize."

Secular critics say Khaled, the son of a doctor, is fostering a religious revival rather than modern reform. Wael Abbas, a leading Egyptian blogger, said Khaled is the "first step to Islamization. He's charismatic and the girls like him. But Egypt is becoming more conservative as a result of him. More girls have started to wear veils."

True, say others, but at least the scarves are pink instead of black, and the girls are wearing them on college campuses where they are training to be engineers and writers and teachers. After Khaled's speech in Virginia, an Islamic hip-hop band performed.

"The fact that he has no training has actually given him additional legitimacy, as people are tired of the traditional clergy who have not kept up with the current dilemmas facing the young and who present Islam in ways that are archaic and boring," said Radwan Masmoudi, head of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy in Washington.

The question now is whether Khaled represents a fad or an enduring trend. Khaled is most popular among the middle and upper classes. Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper described him as a "Pied Piper" leading Arab youth "to an unknown destination -- much to the discontent of the town elders."

At the end of his Crystal City speech, Khaled was mobbed by both young and old. The scramble to hear or be near him dragged on until almost midnight. A burly bodyguard finally extricated him and Khaled left to even louder applause.