Nablus, West Bank - Depending on whom you ask, Naher Kharraz, is either one of the West Bank's most dangerous threats or one of its holiest men.
On Sunday, as the prominent Hamas preacher prepared his Ramadan sermon on the importance of freeing Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, he was seized by Palestinian police and thrown behind bars.
His crime, according to the Palestinian Authority, was using his mosque to incite hatred. He argues he is being punished for his politics, caught up in a controversial crackdown imposed by the ruling Fatah party on its rival Hamas movement that has seen dozens of West Bank preachers arrested and hundreds more driven underground in the past few months.
The strategy has helped Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas strengthen his hold on power here, after losing Gaza to Hamas in bloody clashes last summer. But now, his government faces a new problem: a chronic shortage of preachers across the West Bank during Islam's holiest month.
"We are in the midst of a major imam shortage," said Jamal Tawalbeh, the Palestinian minister of religious affairs.
"Many of our mosques are now empty. We have requested emergency help from the government," he said.
By the government's own estimates, nearly 2,000 mosques lack qualified preachers.
Local "volunteers" have temporarily taken up those posts. In some cases, these new recruits are unlikely stand-ins.
"The local commander of the al-Aqsa martyrs brigade was leading prayers for several weeks. And he had a gun," complained one worshipper at the al-Raouda mosque in Nablus.
But in a place where the line between religion and politics often blurs, finding the right candidates to fill a preacher's job can be tricky business.
Before sweeping to power in parliamentary elections in 2005, Hamas campaigned in mosques to win support from the faithful.
"It was very deliberate strategy to infiltrate the mosques with imams and sheiks loyal to the movement. They took everything over," said Ghassan Khatib, director of the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre.
The current Fatah government denies orchestrating a purge, but acknowledges that under the new regime, there is no room for clerics who espouse Hamas politics.
To fill those vacancies, the government has turned to private training schools, which offer crash courses in how to teach religion, covering everything from Islamic jurisprudence to human rights.
After completing their training, students are offered starting salaries of roughly $600 a month, a fairly good living in the occupied territories.
"The mosques need fresh blood," said Jamal Mona, a 27-year-old computer technician who recently enrolled, hoping for a career change.
"We need young, modern, democratic imams who can engage in dialogue and avoid factional agendas," he said.
Like most of his classmates, Mr. Mona refuses to talk politics.
However, his teacher, Sheik Saed Sharaf pointedly remarks there "is not a single Hamas person" in his class.
Sheik Sharaf coaches his students how to preach a politically acceptable form of Islam, one that upholds the principles of "non-violence," "moderation" and "peaceful struggle."
In the charged world of Palestinian politics, the language is hardly neutral, echoing the secular Fatah Party's political agenda. Only students who vow to uphold those teachings are eligible for a job.