Walter Ong, Marcel Jousse, and other scholars of orality have listed features common to the verbal productions of oral societies. At the forefront of these features is rhythm. A physiological phenomenon rooted in human breathing patterns, speech rhythms are a mnemonic aid integral to orally based expression. For the predominantly oral societies of pre Islamic and early Islamic times, this meant that their artistic verbal productions were grounded in rhythmic patterns. However, the classical Arabic oration had functions that were different from the functions of the verbal productions of other societies. The rhythm of the Homeric epic, for example, was built around recurring epithets, a feature absent from Arabic orations. Moreover, the rhythm of the oration was grounded in a context different even than the context of the other verbal genres of Arabic literary production. Its production method was largely spontaneous, and its purpose was primarily to persuade. The differences in context lead to differences in mode of rhythm. So while Arabic poetry primarily used rhyme and meter, and the Qur'an assonance, the oration relied on parallelism to produce a rhythmic, and thus memorable, artistic piece. Parallelism in the classical Arabic oration teamed up with other acoustic, semantic, and syntactic features: audience engagement devices, vivid imagery, citation of sacred or traditional material, and dignified yet simple language. Together, these five features provided an aid to memorization, and simultaneously, through rhetorical means, they tacitly steered the audience to the speaker's point of view. Analysis of a sermon on piety attributed to Ali b. Abi Talib will demonstrate the aesthetic workings of the classical Arabic oration. To the goal of convincing the audience to prepare for the hereafter, Ali harnesses from within the five groups mentioned earlier several stylistic techniques of tacit persuasion: antithetical parallelism, repetition of key terms, application of emphatic structures, posing of rhetorical questions, and straightforward yet elevated vocabulary and syntax. Through a skillful usage of these devices, he delineates a clear contrast between this world and the next, today and tomorrow, good and evil, guidance and error.

In 1995, after a failed assassination attempt against Egyptian President Husni Mubarak a celebration was organized and shown on national television. In order to signify that Mubarak's rule was sanctioned by God some of the most influential religious leaders were asked to share the stage with the President and to offer him their support. One of those leaders was Muhammad Mitwalli Sha'rawi an Al-Azhar graduate who was at that time Egypt's most beloved television preacher. Instead of sanctioning Mubarak's rule however Sha'rawi admonished Mubarak, in a subtle but nonetheless profound manner. Sha'rawi told Mubarak that although he ruled by the will of God he did not rule according to God's will. Even though Sha'rawi was invited to the celebration to confirm Mubarak's reign as divinely sanctioned instead he confirmed that Mubarak was not their rightful ruler. Even though Sha'rawi did religiously admonish Mubarak he did not call for his overthrow or even directly confront him, should his admonition therefore be seen as a kind of capitulationk If we look closely at the speech Sha'rawi made to Mubarak that day and we considerer certain factors we can see that what Sha'rawi said was appropriate his role as a religious authority. As a respected religious scholar ('alim) he was able to speak as a representative of God and therefore to undermine the foundation of Mubarak's claim to legitimacy in a way that no other actor possibly could. Hence theological articulations about worldly power (dominion) can be considered political speech especially in a situation where believers are suppressed by a dominant system. As opposed to being a call for passive capitulation, such speech demonstrates how virtue is cultivated in those who receive discourse, which allows the dominated to empower themselves. But this view must be complimented with acknowledgement of discursive precedence. The importance of the utterance and of the authority associated with an 'alim-preacher underlies the power of discourse to affect the receiver. Analysis of how utterance is transformed into a cultivation of virtue and therefore how religious admonition can engender certain behaviors can be accomplished with a three-pronged approach. First, a consideration of how an 'alim's speech can be considered a part of divine discourse, second how narrative can be extended with a look at what it signifies to the listener and third, consideration of how in the reception of words helps form certain ethical sensibilities in the receiver.

In the twentieth century no Shiite alim has written or spoken more about Karbala and martyrdom of Husayn than Ayatullah Ali Naqi Naqvi (d. 1988), a Shiite alim from India, and a prolific author who also held the position of Dean of Shiite Theology at Aligarh University (India). Rare also it is for a Shiite scholar of his stature to choose to sit on a pulpit for public lectures. Scholarship has pointed out how often Karbala symbolism has been used as means to political ends, especially in the context of contemporary Iranian history. The case of Ali Naqvi is, however, different. Besides being a representative of the traditional Shiite culture in which the events of Karbala are reiterated to evoke mourning and tears, Naqvi's sermons employ the powerful symbolism of Karbala narrative to preach religion. For Shiite Muslims confronted by the challenge of pluralism of worldviews, religious and secular, he makes ample use of Karbala symbolism to teach afresh what he took to be the core teachings and truths of Islam. He accomplished it by universalizing the meaning and message of Karbala, whereby Husayn is no more a martyr of Shiite Islam, but the martyr par excellence of humanity, thus the title of his book Shahid-e-Insaniat (The Martyr of Humanity). Similarly, other themes of Karbala and the symbolism behind those are presented in universalistic terms, geared towards communicating religious teachings in the light of contemporary challenges. This paper analyzes Ayatullah Naqvi's 'recasting' of the Islamic tradition through his sermons on Karbala.

In his study of biographical tradition Michael Cooperson argued that prosopographical dictionaries (tabaqat) served as the major means of legitimization for different professional groups through creating a spiritual genealogy going back to the Prophet and/or other luminaries of the early Islamic period. This kind of literary activity had flourished since the first half of the 3rd/9th century CE. After its initial stage the tabaqat tradition persisted almost until modern times in the form of revisions and/or additions (i.e. the dhayl, lit. tail). All major groups had their tabaqats composed in the course of the first two centuries after the inception of this genre. Both religious and "secular" groups were represented; the latter included such groups as poets and even singers. Yet preachers were a very significant exception to that otherwise widespread pattern: they did not have their dictionary written until the late 6th/12th century. Kitab al-qussas wa-'l-mudhakkirin (The Book of [religious] story-tellers and admonishers) was the first book - and probably the only one - that can be classified as a prosopographical dictionary of preachers. Written by Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597/1201), the famous Hanbali preacher of Baghdad and a prolific writer, this book presented preachers (wu''az) as a coherent group that traces its genealogy back to the Prophet Muhammad himself and has an extremely important mission of molding and honing popular piety. This paper addresses the issue of why this legitimization effort took place so late and offers the following provisional explanation. Madrasas and other waqf-based institutions became part and parcel of the Islamic urban and religious landscape at that period. Offering profitable positions, these institutions gradually brought the process of professionalization of the learned class ('ulama') to its conclusion: the learned eventually abandoned their "secular" occupations. In social terms that meant that there emerged a rather crisp boundary between the learned elite and rank-and-file Muslims. No longer engaged in the same economic activities as other Muslims, the 'ulama' were losing their organic connections with the umma. Under these circumstances Ibn al-Jawzi saw wa'z, or "popular preaching" as it is conventionally rendered by Western scholars, as the major means of restoring and supporting this connection. In doing so he chose to treat preachers (wu''az) as a distinct group that shared an important mission, bringing together Sunni preachers of different legal schools into one group based on a new type of solidarity.