This book narrates the rise to prominence of South African preacher Ahmed Deedat. His biography is woven into three larger processes: state formation in South Africa, the emergence of a transnational Indian diaspora, and the globalization of Islamic movements and proselytizing in the late twentieth century. Ahmed Deedat's story is full of paradoxes. He belonged to an ethnic and religious minority (Indian Muslims in South Africa), came from a humble family, received little education, and grew up as a non-white under apartheid. Yet, he has become the most famous Muslim preacher in modern history, inspiring Muslim activism in the entire Muslim world and among Muslim communities in the West. He also succeeded, with the support of benefactors from the petro-monarchies of the Gulf countries including the bin Laden family, to build and rule single-handedly over a prosperous predication business worth millions of dollars.

Samadia Sadouni devotes significant attention to the formation of an Indian diaspora in South Africa in the context of state formation. After the abolition of slavery in the British colonies in 1834, immigration of indentured laborers was favored within the British Empire to remedy the shortage of labor. The first wave of Indian migration consisted of indentured laborers brought to the British Colony of Natal from colonial India in the first half of the nineteenth century. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a second wave of migration consisted of free migrants from Gujarat who were predominantly Sunni Muslims. It is from this population that the successful business elite emerged to build strong transnational ties with South Asia, and to create Islamic institutions such as schools and mosques that would preserve Muslim identity in South Africa. Throughout the period of the formation of the South African state, from the incorporation of the Colony of Natal into the South African Union in 1910 to the creation of the South African Republic in 1961, Indians have been struggling to enjoy full civil rights in South Africa and to preserve their identity. For Indian Muslims in particular, apartheid was a mixed blessing. On one hand, it curtailed some of their citizenship rights. On the other hand, it enabled them to grow separately, develop Muslim institutions, and maintain close ties with colonial India, and (after the partition) with India and Pakistan.

The author explains that Ahmed Deedat developed a vocation for Islamic predication in response to the aggressive proselytizing of Christian evangelists. In building a strategy of preaching, Deedat drew inspiration partly from the tradition of religious controversy in India (munazara), and partly by adopting the methods of proselytizing of televangelists. The author discusses also how prominent South African Islamic societies contributed to the success of Ahmed Deedat. Indeed, Deedat joined the Arabic Study Circle of Durban in the 1950s to develop his expertise in Islamic preaching. He subsequently was introduced to international Islamic organizations and benefactors through his contacts within the South African Muslim Youth Movement. Unlike the Tablighi Jamaat organization, which targets Muslim populations, Deedat was a polemicist who criticized only non-Muslims, essentially Christians, and to a lesser extent Hindus.

Initially, his preaching appealed to a large segment of the Muslim population in South Africa. However, from the 1980s, the struggle against apartheid required the building of a large interreligious and interracial coalition in South Africa. In this context, the Muslim population in South Africa tended to distance itself from Deedat's preaching which was undermining the much needed peaceful religious coexistence so necessary to the anti-apartheid coalition. By the time of his death in 2005, Deedat had inspired the creation of many ‘Islamic propagation centers’ in Europe, South Asia, and Africa. Concerning his legacy at home, there are different perceptions. For the youth, he is outdated. For some underprivileged Indians in the townships he is still celebrated as a hero, while for the middle-class, he is an imposter.

Why has Deedat had more appeal and success in some African countries than others? This reviewer would argue that the reception of his message depended very much on the local experience of religious coexistence. In a country like Senegal, which is predominantly Muslim but where Muslim/Christian relations are harmonious, Ahmed Deedat is virtually unknown and, in any case, his message has had little appeal. By contrast, in Nigeria, where religious coexistence has been difficult, Deedat is seen as one of the most celebrated Muslim heroes of Islamic history. His books and video-recordings have been used by Muslim preachers to counter the religious claims of the Pentecostal and charismatic Christian movements that have scored dramatic success in the North.

The author attempts with less success to contribute to the larger theoretical debates about modern Islamist movements. In that respect, there are some key concepts that deserved a more robust conceptualisation than the book offers: ‘Islamism’, ‘post-Islamism’, ‘secularism’, ‘new intellectuals’, and ‘religious modernity’. Nevertheless the book, in providing a fascinating historical ethnography of the Deedat odyssey, makes an important contribution to African and Islamic Studies.