When Tony embraced Islam, he lost his business, his friends, and, for a time, his family. In Part 2 of his conversation on ROOTED, Shaykh Riyad Walls tells the story of what came next: the journey into sacred knowledge. From his wife teaching him alif-bā, to selling his beloved hi-fi to pay the rent, to walking a Long Street that was once lined with bookshops, to the hadith that lit the fire in him, "whoever walks the path of knowledge, Allah will make easy for him the path to Jannah."

Along the way: his father’s reconciliation in a hospital bed, the two kinds of divine guidance, the travelator as a picture of staying on the path, the teachers of Dar al-Arqam who carried him, and the dream of studying in the city of Fes that sets up Part 3.

A story for every seeker, convert or raised-Muslim, that being guided is a choice you keep making.

ROOTED is a series from Isnad Academy following the pursuit of sacred knowledge through the unbroken chain of transmission, the isnād that connects us, teacher to student, back to the Prophet ﷺ.

This is Part 2 of three. In Part 3: the travels, the trials on the path of knowledge, and the road to the mimbar.

🔔 Subscribe so you don't miss Part 3.

#ROOTED #IsnadAcademy #CapeTown #Islam #ConvertStory #SeekingKnowledge

00:00 "Allah took it all away — so I could focus on the one thing He gave me"

00:45 Welcome back to ROOTED

02:14 The convert's different path to knowledge

02:56 "I embraced Islam and got the girl as a bonus"

04:41 Losing the business, the friends, the family

10:27 When my father found out

14:32 The hospital: "he was proud of what I'd become"

17:10 "Good luck" — the tests every believer faces

18:15 The gateway to the path of knowledge

20:48 Married, and the move to Cravenby

22:58 Selling the hi-fi: give something up for Allah

25:46 Long Street, when it was a street of bookshops

32:22 The two kinds of guidance

34:45 "This religion speaks about everything" — and istinja

44:55 "I love you for the sake of Allah"

47:26 The travelator: staying on the path

51:36 The book that lit the fire: Ihyā Ulūm al-Dīn

52:32 "Whoever walks the path of knowledge…"

55:15 Muhammad Karim and the sponsorship to study

57:08 ICOSA, Dar al-Arqam, and choosing a path

58:14 My teachers

01:00:52 Voice of the Cape and the door to Medina

01:03:24 "My first achievement" — first in class

01:06:28 Bursting to travel: the city of Fes

01:08:28 Al-Qarawiyyin, Fatima al-Fihri and the old way of learning

01:11:54 "Be a seeker, and remain a seeker"

01:13:29 The four types of people in knowledge

01:15:02 "Above every knower is the All-Knowing"

01:16:00 The cliffhanger: setting out for Morocco

Correction: Mawlay Idris I was a descendant of Sayyiduna Hasan ibn Ali (Ahl al-Bayt), not of the Umayyads.

Three generations after his great-grandfather arrived in the Cape as a color-sergeant in a British punitive expedition, Shaykh Riyad Walls walked into a home in Cape Town and took his shahada. In this episode of ROOTED, he tells the story of how he came to Islam, the Rastafarian who handed him a book on the life of the Prophet ﷺ, the warmth of the Muslims of Heideveld, the men in white on the steps at Llandudno, and the single sentence that sums up his guidance: “It's not what I did, it’s what I didn't do.”

Along the way: growing up "a confused Christian" in apartheid Cape Town, the shield of taqwa in a pie shop in Steenberg, the koesister as a portrait of the Cape Muslim community, the closure of the Tana Baru, and the tests that came the moment he said I believe.

ROOTED is a podcast series from Isnad Academy following the pursuit of sacred knowledge through the unbroken chain of transmission — the isnād that connects us, teacher to student, back to the Prophet ﷺ.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. In Part 2, Shaykh Riyad shares his journey into sacred knowledge.

🔔 Subscribe for Part 2 and the rest of the ROOTED series.

#ROOTED #IsnadAcademy #CapeTown #Islam #ConvertStory #Seerah

00:00 "It's not what I did, it's what I didn't do"

00:30 Welcome to ROOTED & the one-sentence question

01:49 Allah opened the door — I didn't hesitate

03:33 Farouk Musqat, the Rastafarian who gave him the book

04:35 The Steenberg screen-printing factory

06:14 First encounter with Muslims

07:24 What apartheid kept apart

09:37 "Were you devout?" — a confused Christian

13:24 Sunday school & the stories of the Prophets

16:22 The pie shop: the shield of taqwa

19:00 The warmth of Heideveld

19:50 In defence of the koesister

22:09 A polyglot lineage: his wife's family

24:57 Salah in the factory

28:51 Tartib: why the Cape scholars held the line

29:36 Surviving the Dutch: the Van Diemen plakkaat

33:44 His great-grandfather & the 91st Highlanders

35:48 The Tana Baru uprising, 1886

38:01 "Allah took from his back" — never lose hope

39:33 The road to the Shahada

40:55 "I was spiritually blind for 18 years"

43:09 The night he asked: who is Allah, who is Muhammad?

45:00 Words with a frequency: salam, mashaAllah

48:14 Tawheed: finding the channel

51:14 The men in white on the Llandudno steps

57:00 George Bernard Shaw & the Orientalists

59:38 "I didn't want to be like them"

01:00:16 Choosing Islam — and tartib again

01:03:34 Don't delay the Shahada

01:04:14 Choosing the name Riyad

01:05:59 The Shahada, at last

01:06:45 "You were not yet Shaykh Riyad Walls"

01:08:28 "Islam is perfect, the Muslims are not"

01:10:43 Embracing Islam during the Gulf War

01:12:19 Fired for wearing the kufi

01:13:37 Junaid Senekal & "good luck"

01:15:01 "If you say 'I believe,' you will be tested"

01:15:40 His mother: "Tony, if you're happy, I'm happy"

01:17:31 The cliffhanger: the quest for knowledge

Two men from the Cape who once stood against apartheid boarded a boat for Gaza. They were seized in international waters, held in an Israeli prison, and sent home. This is their witness.

Former Ambassador Faizel Moosa and Mogamed Faeek Ariefdien sailed with the Global Sumud Flotilla on its Spring 2026 mission. In this Strong Believer special they sit with Shaykh Irshaad Sedick and tell the story the headlines could not carry. The decision to go and what it cost their families. The interception at sea. The brutality of the prison ships and Ktziot detention. The salah led under a rifle. The shouts they sent through the prison walls so the Palestinians inside would know they were not alone. And what sumud and sabr came to mean once they had paid for them in their own bodies.

The boat was stopped. The witness was not.

Guests:

Former Ambassador Faizel Moosa, humanitarian, struggle veteran, son of the late Judge Essa Moosa.

Mogamed Faeek Ariefdien, Cape Town stalwart of the anti apartheid struggle.

Host: Shaykh Irshaad Sedick, Isnad Academy.

⚠️ This episode contains accounts of violence and abuse. Viewer discretion is advised.

#Sumud #Gaza #Palestine #GlobalSumudFlotilla #Flotilla #CapeTown #StrongBeliever #Sabr #FreePalestine #icjosh

Chapter markers

00:00 Cold open: human trafficked in a container

00:57 Sumud and sabr: the opening

03:01 Meet the guests

04:53 Why we went: aid for the children

06:17 The 10,000 still behind: leaving the Palestinians in prison

07:21 Change it with the hand: the hadith that frames the episode

09:38 Raising the world's awareness

12:33 We stood on the holy grounds: redefining success

14:33 The power of dua in the cell

15:53 Was it a failure? Hudaybiyya and Fath Mubina

17:03 The decision: getting your affairs in order

19:46 Apartheid and Gaza: the same and not the same

21:43 On the boat: the spirit of the convoy

25:53 Dawah at sea: salah under a rifle

33:35 Shot on deck while his family watched live

37:08 The prison ships: containers, stun grenades, rubber bullets

41:00 Singled out as South African: the ICJ in the interrogation

43:00 Banu Nadir: destroyed by their own hands

50:19 Even the babies are terrorists

51:31 Whatever your passport says, you are Palestinian

54:09 The container, the boots, and the last kick of a dying horse

58:43 In the belly of the beast

01:00:17 Let them hear that we are here

01:02:14 Refusing to scream

01:03:50 What will you tell Allah?

01:05:33 Cyprus, the Western Cape, and the exit strategy

01:07:48 What you can do: Coke, coal, and the West

01:08:20 Wake up, Cape Town

01:11:25 The land convoy and the silence of Muslim states

01:14:36 Why I sail: I should have gone sooner

01:18:55 Seeing injustice at home

01:21:39 Closing: Surah al Nisa and a dua

In a time when anyone can upload an Islamic video and call themselves a scholar, Islam has always been carried differently — from teacher to student, across generations, all the way back to the Prophet ﷺ. That chain has a name: isnād.

ROOTED is Isnad Academy's flagship interview series. Conversations with South Africa's qualified Islamic scholars — the people who went to the source and came home. Rooted in tradition. Routed through the chain.

Our third guest carries the chain quietly. Hafiz Raees Mohamad memorised the Qur'an as a child, walked out of grade five to do it, and later travelled to Tareem, Yemen — where he studied at Dar al-Mustafa under the supervision of Habib Umar bin Hafiz. He is the author of The Road to Tareem, a book endorsed by Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller as "a real gem." He holds a postgraduate diploma and MBA from Henley Business School, serves in an executive role at Old Mutual Investment Group, and is currently pursuing a PhD enhancing Michael Porter's strategy models using prophetic strategy.

He answers to "Brother," not "Sheikh." That is the conversation.

In this episode we cover:

• Why a Hafiz of the Qur'an and a Dar al-Mustafa graduate refuses the title of Sheikh
• Arriving in Yemen during civil war with no Arabic, no contacts, and one return ticket
• What twelve months in Dar al-Mustafa actually feels like from the inside
• The morning Habib Umar told him "I think you're ready to leave"
• Writing The Road to Tareem and the Uber ride that started it
• Why he came home without the turban, the lexicon, or the performance
• How prophetic strategy outperforms corporate strategy in real boardrooms
• The Mawlid in Madinah that proved Tareem travels with you
• Advice for the young brother in Cape Town who wants the knowledge but not the costume

Isnad Academy hosts South African qualified scholars and provides professionally recorded courses for the global Muslim community. Subscribe to stay connected to the chain.

00:00 — Opening: To Be Rooted, To Be Routed

00:43 — Introducing Hafiz Raees Mohamad

02:01 — Why "Brother" and Not "Sheikh"

04:08 — Who is Raees Mohamad in His Own Words

06:07 — The Decision to Go to Tareem

08:49 — Survival: Arriving in Yemen at Civil War

14:05 — The First Two Months Felt Like Two Years

18:21 — Writing The Road to Tareem

21:55 — "I Want to Come Home" — The Call to His Mother

26:39 — Speaking Arabic at the Mawlid

27:39 — Breakfast with Habib Umar

31:01 — "I Think You're Ready to Leave"

32:14 — What Tareem Actually Did For Him

33:55 — The Scholar Who Becomes a Businessman

38:21 — When Your Non-Muslim Boss Asks If You Made Salah

45:25 — Advice to a Freshly-Returned Graduate

49:13 — The Community's Traditional IQ Has Risen

52:54 — Tareem Without the Turban

56:20 — What He Holds On To, Privately

01:00:39 — The Spirituality of Tareem

01:02:16 — The Madinah Mawlid: Tareem Travels With You

01:05:53 — For a Young Person Considering Tareem

01:08:31 — Quickfire Round

01:09:56 — Advice to the Brother Who Wants This Life

01:14:23 — A Month in Dar al-Mustafa Will Humble You

01:16:38 — Shaykh Nuh Keller on *The Road to Tareem*

01:17:30 — Be Your Own Person

01:18:21 — The Book That Brought Him a Wife, a Scholarship, and a Career

01:19:53 — Closing

A practical, no-fiqh conversation about Qurbani with Mawlana Anees Kara of Maraisburg, Johannesburg. After nearly four decades in this work, Mawlana Anees brings the kind of practitioner knowledge that does not appear in any classical text or fatwa site: how to pick a healthy animal off the kraal, why some Qurbani meat tastes different and how to prevent it, the real difference between farm and home Qurbani, and the proper way to distribute meat with dignity.

This is a standalone episode for the Eid al-Adha season. For fiqh questions about Qurbani, please refer to my other content on SeekersGuidance and on the Isnad Academy.

Chapter markers below.

About Mawlana Anees Kara

Mawlana Anees graduated from Darul Uloom Zakariyya in 2009 and serves as the masjid's Khatib in Maraisburg. He runs K.A.Z Livestock and Game Meat Traders - a family project that has operated for over 36 years.

#Qurbani #EidAlAdha #IsnadAcademy

Chapter markers

00:00 Introduction

01:08 Meet Mawlana Anees Kahrah

02:25 Where to actually buy your animal

05:23 What an experienced eye looks for

07:59 Honesty in weight and pricing

10:54 Why lamb costs more than mutton

12:54 The two reasons Qurbani meat gets a bad name

15:25 Merino, Dorper, and the breeds question

19:31 Bringing your animal home and treating it right

27:35 Pros and cons of home versus farm Qurbani

30:54 Tasting wild, tasting bloody: the real reason

33:31 The post-slaughter process that fixes everything

36:55 Giving your meat away with dignity

38:47 The slaughter itself: knife, angle, technique

42:42 Aspiring to slaughter for the first time

46:38 Where to find Mawlana Anees

48:11 Closing dua

In a generation pulled in every direction, ROOTED is a series about the ones who stayed grounded. The scholars who sat at the feet of their teachers and carried the tradition home.

Sh Muhammad West is one of the few in his generation who carries two worlds at once. A graduate of the Islamic University of Madina and a chartered accountant. The imam of one of the oldest masajid in the country, Boorhanol Islam in the Bo-Kaap, and the treasurer of the Muslim Judicial Council. He is the Madina graduate who refused to come home and cut himself off from the community he disagrees with on secondary matters. He chose the harder road, the road of staying in the room.

In this conversation, we sit with the formation of a scholar in Jeddah and Madina, the texture of his return, the Athari and Shafi'i fault lines, the cost of refusing tribalism, the romantic but halal proposal, the autistic son who is the happiest person he knows, the burnout he is only now learning to name, and the institution he is now responsible for the finances of.

We talk about the MJC honestly. What it is, what it is not, why our forefathers thought it was non-negotiable, and what the path forward looks like for an organisation eighty years old that is finally being asked to explain itself.

A conversation between two scholars and a long-time colleague about formation, friction, and the institutional servant’s reckoning.

This is your deen. You deserve to understand it.

00:00 Cold open: just die as a Muslim

00:22 Opening monologue

02:25 Quick-fire opener

07:43 Jeddah as a child

10:50 Madina University from the inside

13:18 Coming home in 2011

17:45 The parents' search across Malaysia, Egypt, Jeddah

22:30 The mother's record

27:40 The maternal grandfather and the Silo gym call

33:30 The Madina student years

39:20 Teaching the Sirah from a minority lens

49:20 The Woolworths meeting

52:00 Athari, Salafi, and the time and place for debate

57:00 Sami Hamdi and the politics of Quran and Sunnah

01:00:40 Palestine and the heart right now

01:11:30 Just talk to Allah

01:17:25 The Romantic Proposal

01:21:00 The life of an alim's wife

01:31:30 Burnout and sharpening the saw

01:33:50 The MJC: what it actually is

01:46:35 Baytul Ulama in the absence of a Khalifa

01:55:50 Living with politics

01:57:55 Final advice for the seeker

02:00:00 The point of all of this

#ROOTED #IsnadAcademy #IslamicScholarship

We live in a time when anyone can upload an Islamic video and call themselves a scholar. But Islam has never been carried that way. It has always moved from teacher to student, across generations, all the way back to the Prophet ﷺ. That chain has a name: isnād.

ROOTED is Isnad Academy's flagship interview series — conversations with South Africa's qualified Islamic scholars. The people who went to the source and came home. Rooted in tradition. Routed through the chain.

Our first guest embodies both.

Shaykh Zaid ibn Riad Fataar Al-Azhari left Cape Town at the age of six for Cairo, where he would spend the better part of his life inside one of the oldest universities on earth. At Al-Azhar he memorised the Qur'an, completed his Diploma in Islamic Sciences, and earned his BA in Islamic Theology — specialising in Aqīdah and Philosophy. He studied privately with Egyptian scholars, receiving ijāzāt in Hadith and Aqīdah. He returned to Cape Town, completed his Masters at the Madina Institute with a thesis on Al-Ghazali and Ibn Rushd — Revelation versus Reason — and has been serving the community ever since as imam, teacher, and founder of Dar At-Tawhid Institute. He currently serves as Head of Department for Islamic Studies at the Oracle Academy.

He is, in the truest sense, a scholar who went to the source — and came back to us.

In this conversation we cover:

— What it means to grow up as a Cape Town child inside the Azhar world — The moment knowledge stopped being something forced and became something wanted — What isnād actually is and why it matters in an age when any fatwa is a Google search away — The three levels of ijāzah — and what each one actually authorises you to do — Why sitting with a scholar gives you something no YouTube video, PDF, or AI can replicate — The nūr of prophethood — and why it only travels heart to heart — How the ādāb of the scholars changed Shaykh Zaid more than their knowledge did — A real talāq case that showed exactly why wisdom cannot come from a book alone — The difference between being religious and performing religiosity — What our generation of scholars carries differently — and what that demands of us — What to say to a young Muslim who wants knowledge but doesn't know where to start or who to trust

This is not a wellness podcast. This is not a highlight reel. This is a conversation about what it actually means to carry knowledge — and what Cape Town has quietly been producing for generations.

ROOTED. Every episode, one scholar. One chain. One city at the bottom of Africa with more to offer the world than most people know.

Isnad Academy is based in Cape Town, South Africa. Our mission is to connect the global Muslim community to authenticated Islamic scholarship — through live teaching, recorded courses, and platforms like ROOTED that make our scholars visible to the world.

New episodes drop regularly. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss the next conversation.

#IsnadAcademy #ROOTED #IslamicScholarship #SouthAfrica #CapeTown #Azhar #Isnad #IslamicKnowledge #MuslimPodcast #Ulama

00:00 — A Family Almost Broke Up (Cold Open)

00:12 — Welcome to ROOTED | Series Introduction

05:00 — Quick Fire: Coffee, Cairo & Astronomy

09:45 — Cairo at Six: Growing Up as a Foreigner

18:00 — The Quran is Everywhere in Egypt

22:00 — When Knowledge Became a Choice

31:00 — The Fish in the Tank: Entering the University

38:00 — The Turning Point: The Ādāb of the Scholars

44:00 — What is Isnād and Why Should You Care?

51:00 — The Soul Operation

57:00 — What is an Ijāzah? Three Levels Explained

01:02:00 — What a Teacher Gives You That a PDF Cannot

01:09:00 — The Nūr of Prophethood: Heart to Heart

01:12:00 — Egypt's Politics and the Colonisers' Legacy

01:23:00 — The FBI Story: Freedom We Take for Granted

01:29:00 — Do We Carry the Tradition Differently?

01:35:00 — The Worrying Trend: Religion as Fashion

01:52:00 — The Exciting Trend: Scholars in the University

02:03:00 — Final Advice to Young Seekers of Knowledge

02:08:00 — What's Coming from Isnad Academy

The Muslim world is not confused. It is paralysed. And there is a difference. In this opening episode of Season 2, Shaykh Irshaad Sedick begins with a question asked outside a masjid after Isha: what am I supposed to do now? It is the question every Muslim is carrying. And the answer begins with a prophetic diagnosis that is 1,400 years old and more relevant today than it has ever been.

We live in a time when the nations of the world have gathered. The feast the Prophet ﷺ described is not a metaphor anymore. It is the news.

In the hadith of Thawban, narrated in Abu Dawud, the Prophet ﷺ foretold a time when the Ummah would be numerous but weak, like the foam on the ocean. Moved by every wave, unable to move anything else. He named the cause: wahn. And when the companions asked what wahn was, he said: hubb al-dunya wa karahiyyat al-mawt. Love of this world and hatred of death.

That is the diagnosis. It has been sitting in our books for fourteen centuries. The question this season asks is: are we finally brave enough to face the cure?

The cure is strength. Not strength as a motivational concept. Strength as a prophetic prescription. The strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak believer, even though there is goodness in both.

Season 2 of The Strong Believer focuses on intellectual strength: how we build the kind of mind that can read this world clearly, think with the Quran as its foundation, and navigate what is coming without being broken by it.

This episode covers:

• The question every Muslim is carrying right now and what it really means
• The hadith of Thawban and the prophetic diagnosis of the Ummah
• Wahn in its contemporary forms: managed numbness, the guilt cycle, the waiting
• The strong believer hadith as the direct prescription
• The Quran as an intellectual foundation: one scholar's journey from a train to Darul Naeem
• What hubb al-dunya actually looks like in an ordinary Muslim life in 2026
• What karahiyyat al-mawt looks like when nobody is asking you to die
• 
  

Hadiths referenced: Hadith of Thawban on wahn — Abu Dawud Al-Mu'min al-Qawiyy — Muslim Al-Kayyis man dana nafsahu — Tirmidhi

In this post Ramadan reminder, Shaykh Irshaad Sedick reflects on one of the most important questions facing every believer after Eid: what happens after Ramadan?

Drawing on the verses of Surah Fussilat, the glad tidings given to those who say “Our Lord is Allah” and then remain steadfast, this talk explores the meaning of istiqamah, not as perfection, but as constantly getting back up and returning to Allah. Ramadan is not the finish line. It is the training ground. The real event is life itself.

This episode reflects on acceptance, the six days of Shawwal, the danger of going back to old habits, the priority of salah and staying away from haram, and the wisdom of setting small, sustainable acts of worship that can remain with us until the next Ramadan.

A timely reminder for anyone asking how to preserve the gifts of Ramadan and continue the journey with sincerity, humility, and hope.

00:00 Opening praise, verses, and hadith

02:03 Reflecting after Ramadan and asking Allah for acceptance

02:57 The practice of the salaf after Ramadan

04:21 What happens after the honeymoon of Ramadan?

04:46 We do not worship Ramadan, we worship Allah

06:24 Salah is not piety, it is the bare minimum

07:00 Shaytan is back, and the real fight begins

07:18 Ramadan as training, not the competition

08:25 The race analogy: training for the real event

09:44 The boxing analogy: get back up again

12:16 The meaning of istiqamah

13:19 Istiqamah is not perfection

15:03 We are not angels, we are human beings who keep trying

16:27 Surah Fussilat and the angels at the time of death

17:42 Do not fear and do not grieve

19:27 Glad tidings of Jannah before leaving this world

20:42 We were your allies in this world and the next

21:02 In Jannah you will have whatever your souls desire

22:42 Allah alone is our Rabb

23:21 They slipped, but they kept getting back up

24:12 Ask Allah for a good death

25:01 Now we are in the ring

25:36 The six days of Shawwal

26:56 Warming down after Ramadan

27:44 Can the six fasts be separate or must they be consecutive?

28:44 Combining qada with the six days of Shawwal

31:42 You cannot maintain Ramadan exactly outside Ramadan

33:17 Do not drop everything because you cannot keep everything

34:03 Focus on the bare minimum first

34:49 Stay away from haram and guard your salah

35:25 Set a ridiculously easy quota

37:24 Small consistency grows into something great

38:31 Use your five daily salahs as your ladder of growth

40:06 Why we fail: we set the bar too high

40:37 Build slowly and keep improving

41:18 Final dua and closing

In this episode, I sit with Mln. Ebrahim Moosa from the Palestine Information Network for a frank conversation on the current escalation in the region and what it means for the wider Ummah.

This is the full, raw recording as it was captured. It is not edited for tone, platform sensitivities, or soundbites. The aim is clarity: identifying the aggressor-victim framing, resisting oversimplification, and keeping our moral compass anchored while the timeline shifts fast.

We also speak about:

• How public confusion is forming and why it is understandable
• The danger of making any state a barometer for Palestine
• Holding political clarity without collapsing into theological confusion
• Justice, consistency, and the responsibility of speech in crisis
• Ramadan: worship, dua, and meaningful action without escapism

Listen with care, verify claims, and keep your heart anchored to Allah in a moment designed to disorient.