Zakir Abdul Karim Naik (Hindi: ज़ाकिर अब्दुल करीम नायक; born 18 October, 1965) is a Indian Muslim public speaker, and writer on the subject of Islam and comparative religion. By profession, he is a medical doctor, attaining a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) from Maharashtra, but since 1991 he has become a preacher involved in Islamic proselytism (da'wah)and Comparative Religion. [1] He states that his main goal is to revive the crucial fundamentals of Islam that most of the Muslim youth are either oblivious to or poorly understand in context of modernity.
Zakir Naik is the founder and president of the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF)[1][2] —a non-profit organization that owns and broadcasts the free-to-air TV channel network Peace TV from Mumbai, India.
BIOGRAPHY:
Zakir Naik was born on October 18, 1965 in Mumbai, India and is of Konkani descent.[3] He attended St. Peter's High School (ICSE) in the city of Mumbai. Later he joined the Kishinchand Chellaram College and then studied medicine at Topiwala National Medical College and Nair Hospital in Mumbai. He then received his MBBS degree from the University of Mumbai. In 1991 he gave up his activity as a medical doctor and started working in the field of Da'wah or proselytizing of Islam[4]
Naik says he was inspired by the late Ahmed Deedat[5] who had himself been active in the field of Da'wah for more than forty years[6]. According to Naik, his goal is to "concentrate on the educated Muslim youth who have become apologetic about their own religion and have started to feel the religion is outdated"[7] and that it was the duty of every Muslim to remove perceived misconceptions about Islam to counter what he considers as the Western media’s anti-Islamic bias in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks upon the United States. [8] He has lectured and authored several books on Islam and Comparative religion[9] as well as those directed towards removing misconceptions about Islam.[10][11] Some of his articles are also frequently published in Indian magazines like the Islamic Voice.[12][13][14]
Thomas Blom Hansen, a sociologist who held academic positions at various universities, has written that Naik's style of memorizing the Qur'an and hadith literature in various languages, and travelling abroad to debate Islam with theologians, has made him extremely popular in Muslim and non-Muslim circles. Although he usually speaks to audiences of several hundreds, and sometimes thousands, it is the videotapes and DVDs of his talks which are widely distributed. His talks are usually recorded in English, to be broadcast at weekends on several cable networks in Mumbai's Muslim neighborhoods,[7] and on the channel Peace TV, which he co-promotes. [2][15] Topics he speaks on include: "Islam and Modern Science", "Islam and Christianity", and "Islam and secularism", among others.
Interesting guy, isn't he ...
ReplyDeleteya he has gr8 knowledge...
ReplyDelete