Zakir Naik

Zakir Abdul Karim Naik is an Indian Islamic televangelist and preacher. Naik is known as a non-Arabic Salafi scholar, public orator, and an authority on comparative religion. He is the founder and president of the Islamic Research Foundation and the Peace TV Network, the largest religious satellite channel network in the world. He was bestowed with Saudi Arabia’s highest honor, the King Faisal International Prize, in 2015.

Before becoming a public speaker, he was a medical physician. Naik has published booklet versions of lectures on Islam and comparative religion. Although he has publicly disclaimed sectarianism in Islam, he is regarded as an influential follower of the Salafi movement. His lectures on Peace TV have been viewed more than 200 million times as of 2013. In addition, Naik's colloquial style of lecturing has been immensely popular among Muslims across the entire world and has been award-winning.

Unlike many Islamic preachers, his lectures are colloquial, given in English, and he usually wears a suit and tie. Naik has held many debates and lectures and is said to "have delivered over 4000 lectures around the world" as of 2016. Naik explains the teachings of Islam as well as convincingly clears misconceptions about Islam with references from the Quran and Sahih Hadith, and with the help of reason, logic and science. He has a tremendous ability to quote extensively and verbatim from the Quran and from other religious scriptures. Naik says that 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the educated Muslim youth who have become apologetic about their own religion and have started to feel the religion is outdated."

In March 2021, Naik launched his new project Al Hidaayah. Al Hidaayah is a spiritual edutainment platform, providing content on religion and education. It aspires to be the largest and best quality platform for Islamic courses and videos. The platform has thousands of hours of videos of more than 40 authentic Islamic speakers from all over the world including Ahmed Deedat, Yusuf Estes, Hussein Ye and Bilal Philips.