Twenty minutes to ten in the evening in Studio No. 6 in the Media Production City in 6 October governorate on the outskirts of Cairo. The heavily bearded, turbaned preacher Mohamed Hussein Yaqoub reviews final instructions about the positions of the cameras with the director before he goes on air on the religious satellite channel Al-Nas. At 10pm, images of a turbulent, dark blue sea and a tear-stained face appear on the screen against the background of a religious song, heralding the beginning of the popular ‘Fadfada’ show. Ensconced in his tiny mud-brick grocery shop in the small village of Al-Qarnashawi in Beheira 200km from Cairo 22- year-old and lightly bearded Ahmed Mustafa is glued to the screen of his TV set, tuned to his favourite religious show. The camera pans and settles on Yaqoub’s face. ‘How is the state of your relationship with God today?’ asks the lay preacher after a long introduction replete with prayers. The topic of the show is death, to the delight of Mustafa. ‘I used to lead a life of sin, watching obscene movies and committing immoral acts,’ he says. ‘Watching religious channels, and especially this series about death, has changed my […]