Amr Khaled, the Arab world's most successful teleda'ia (televangelist is a loose translation) is at it again with a new racy show somewhat inspired by Donald Trump's The Apprentice. Mujaddidun (The Reformers) takes reality television away from mindless entertainment and into a new realm of charitable and voluntary work. For 3 months, 16 young (20-30 years old) contestants from 9 Arab countries compete for the brightest and most practical innovative ideas in charitable projects ranging from helping orphans, rehabilitating prisoners, literacy campaigns, and helping dropouts go back to school. This is part of Khaled's long and concerted campaign since 2004, the year when he launched his television project of development through faith on a successful show called LifeMakers. Many observers have written off Khaled as simply a mimic of American televangelism, but he's decidedly much more than that. Much of what Khaled does can be traced historically to the work of other charismatic religious leaders who used popular culture and the tools of modern media to popularize Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood have always been good at this, but their work has been focused primarily on the socially and economically dispossessed segments of the population. What's new in Khaled's approach is his gentrification of da'wa or the call for Islam. He's addressing a new generation of young Muslims who are better educated, more worldly in their thinking, and certainly with more disposable income to make a difference.

In Mujaddidun, produced by Khaled's Right Start Foundation, the contestants all have or are working towards university degrees in a variety of fields from business to education. Khaled tells them they have been chosen from an impressive pool of 250,000 candidates because they have great innovative ideas and all they need is the right tool to execute them. For 3 days each week, the contestants are divided into 2 teams (usually a team of men and a team of women) and are given a task with a small or big budget, depending on the charitable project. In one episode, the task was to use a video camera and $200 to communicate a worthy educational message. In another, the task was to use $2,000 to help an orphanage. The show, according to its producers, is designed to teach entrepreneurial skills to young Muslims who might have great ideas but no specific skills on how to run and sustain a project. The winner will win $200,000, but 80% of the prize must be invested in a charitable project of the contestant's own making.

Khaled fills a terrible void in the life of young Arab Muslims who are often faced with unemployment or put down by the lack of trust in their abilities to bring social change to their communities. He's undoubtedly the biggest and most influential personality in the history of Arab television, and his impact on Arab society is not negligible. His use of popular culture and moderate religious message does not necessarily make him a progressive religious leader, but he stands in the middle of a stale political structure and an uninspiring and punitive religious leadership. We need more research on the ground to measure the social and cultural impact of his religious nahda (renaissance), and Western media: please stop exoticizing this emerging Muslim media culture as a quirky and odd pastiche of modernity meets tradition.