For those looking for a deeper, more spiritual understanding of the spreading interest in Islam among the young, educated men and women, you will be disappointed to note that you are nothing more than a target market for just another form of capitalism: religious marketing.

In the last couple of years, a series of tele-evangelists have become popular mainstays across various TV channels. Their sudden fame and clout in this respect has been quite a revelation.

One can find a string of evangelists all desiring similar celebratory status and glamour, cashing in on what can now be called the “fundo-fad.”

There is nothing so new or revealing about what their fame is reflecting i.e. a growing interest among the urban bourgeois to rediscover the power and meaning of the faith, regarding one’s place and behaviour in society and the state. So is it bad news for any chance for secularism to creep in and evolve its way back into the social psyche and political mindset of the country? Perhaps. But this fad is certainly good news for good, old-fashioned obscurantism to now survive as an unquestioned and newly fashionable entity.

Today, these evangelists, from Farhat Hashmi to Aamir Liaqat to Junaid Jamshed and all the way across to the former model, Atiya Khan, are a vital part of the fad. The former liberals have brought in a pleasant style-conscious aesthetic to the whole concept of dressing religiously. However, rather ironically, it is such mild Islamists who may be dealing the most serious blow to the whole idea of, shall one say, Islamic Modernism?

They are achieving what the conventional mullah failed to. That is to make the notion of looking and sounding Islamic, which should be widely acceptable among the so-called educated elite. The trendy evangelists with their brand of dressed-up evangelism are actually softened images of the scary, ferocious mullah. The message remains the same: one needs the services of a wise, holy agent to reach the wise, Divine Saviour. Of course, this is something your neighbourhood mullah has also been insisting for years but only looking and sounding a lot cruder.

Really, it is quite a view observing youngish begums and their daughters at the many drawing room lectures and in TV studios, in smart hijabs, going nod, nod, nod in a euphoric, single-minded approval. Accompanying them are usually the ’80s yuppies (now young, modern dads), and young stone-faced tableeghi look-alikes, also going nod, nod, nod in front of an animated evangelist with popping eyes and a crackling voice not different from that of a church missionary.

It can safely be suggested that the fundo fad is largely an outcome of media-centric capitalism that has always benefitted from fashion statements usually born of political and religious ideologies, no matter how radical they are in theory. Because once these are turned into fashion statements (from political expressions), they become mere fads.

So, for those looking for a deeper, more spiritual understanding of the spreading interest in Islam among the young, educated men and women, you will be disappointed to note that you are nothing more than a target market for just another form of capitalism: religious marketing.

They are part of what in pop sociology is called concocted trends. It is an exercise in which the media and vast capitalist interests actually create popular fads and fashions, projecting them as the latest ‘in’ things. These trends are projected to the people who are then superficially rewarded to lap them up as something they really desired.

After all, what does an Islami beard kept by your educated neighbour or cousin, or an Osama poster being enthusiastically bought by an otherwise sensible looking young man, really mean? Nothing more than what a pair of Nike runners, a Burberry hand bag or a trendy white golf shirt with that irritating little alligator logo on it means to a 21st-century yuppie. In other words, the fundo fad and its many fashions, jargon and rituals are a stylised, media-friendly versions of the not-very-marketable mullah.

This fad is a market that is cashed-in by the other side of 21st-century economics. A side that represents and caters to those who are left confused and threatened by the rampant ways of globalisation, post-9/11. So the bad news is, those dressing up like a tableeghi or a hijab-clad Nek Parveen won’t be finding any serious spiritual salvation as such through all these blazing lectures of good and evil, right and wrong.

At least no more seriously than does a hip trendy with a nose-ring or a 40-something yuppie in an expensive golf T-shirt