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.

In this powerful and timely conversation, Shaykh Irshaad Sedick sits down with Mawlānā Ebrahim Moosa of the Palestine Information Network to reflect on the newly declared ceasefire after two years of genocide in Gaza.

Together they unpack:

• What this “ceasefire” really means — and what it doesn’t.
• How the people of Gaza remain unbroken despite unimaginable loss.
• The hypocrisy of global politics and the ongoing battle of narratives.
• The moral duty of Muslims worldwide to pursue justice and accountability.
• The urgent need for the Ummah to build its own power, platforms, and institutions.

This is not the end of the story — it’s the beginning of our reckoning.

Listen as two South African scholars and activists discuss faith, resistance, and the future of the struggle for Palestine.

🎧 Recorded October 16, 2025 – Cape Town

In this gripping and urgent conversation, M. Irshaad Sedick sits down with analyst and political commentator Sami Hamdi for an unflinching look at the Gaza genocide, global power games, and the silence of Muslim leaders. This isn’t about headlines, it’s about what’s happening behind closed doors, and what we, as the Umma, must do about it.

From Iran and Trump’s foreign policy to the betrayal of Palestine by those sworn to defend it, Sami exposes hard truths with clarity and conviction. He explains why the ICJ case matters, how South Africa stood tall when others remained seated, and what real action, not just emotion, looks like.

This is not just a video. It’s a wake-up call. If you believe in justice, if you believe in dignity, if you believe in the power of the people, watch this. Share it. And be part of the Umma in motion.

🕊️ Support the cause.

🎟️ Join us in Durban, Cape Town, and Johannesburg.

📢 Let’s turn outrage into organized action.

For the Buy One Get One Free, Cape Town offer, Whatsapp 0721026363

In this heartfelt and inspiring episode, we sit down with Mawlana Sedick Bailey, a 78-year-old scholar and the oldest graduate of the late Mawlana Taha Karaan (may Allah have mercy on him). Mawlana Bailey shares his remarkable journey of seeking knowledge across decades, reflecting on what it means to be a lifelong learner in service of faith and community.

We discuss:

• His early days of study and what drew him to sacred knowledge

• The impact and legacy of his teacher, Mln Taha Karaan

• How he continues to learn and grow even in his late seventies

• The role of humility, patience, and purpose in the pursuit of ‘ilm

Whether you’re a young student or a seasoned teacher, Mawlana Bailey’s story is a powerful reminder: it is never too late to learn, and the path of knowledge is lifelong.

Part Nine of Understanding Juz Amma - Sura Tariq - M. Irshaad Sedick

Ramadan 1446/2025

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Part Eight of Understanding Juz Amma - Sura Buruj - M. Irshaad Sedick

Ramadan 1446/2025

Account Name: Isnad Academy

Absa Cheque Account Number: 4100949184

Branch 632005

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