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Isnad Academy Podcast

Isnad Academy Podcast

Irshaad Sedick 173 Episodes Oct 10, 2026

The Isnad Academy Podcast features panel discussions with experts on current affairs, aiming to provide authentic knowledge from reliable sources. It draws on the Islamic concept of 'isnad' (chain of transmission) to distinguish authentic information from misinformation. The podcast seeks to present classical orthodox Islamic teachings to a contemporary audience.

Episodes

"From Mouth to Heart" | Mawlana Saalim Peck | ROOTED Ep. 12
"From Mouth to Heart" | Mawlana Saalim Peck | ROOTED Ep. 12 Oct 10, 2026 4298 Mawlana Hafiz Qari Saalim Peck learnt to recite the Quran from his father, completed his hifz before the late Shaykh Muhammad Yusuf Booley, read the Quran to teachers in Egypt and Syria, and graduated from Dar al-Ulum al-Arabiyyah al-Islamiyyah in Strand under Mawlana Taha Karaan. He was the first at the Cape to read the entire Quran in all seven qira'at through the Shatibiyyah. Today he is an
"The Weapon Was a Baby" | Prof. Farid Esack on Palestine and South Africa (Part 3)
"The Weapon Was a Baby" | Prof. Farid Esack on Palestine and South Africa (Part 3) Oct 7, 2026 4786 "They charged her with assault of a soldier, and the weapon was a baby."In the closing sitting of this series, Shaykh Irshaad Sedick and Professor Farid Esack turn to Palestine, the struggle that South African Muslims have long carried as their own.We begin with the open letter to the people of Palestine that Prof. Esack wrote, painted along the separation wall near Ramallah. Then: why eve
"Nobody Sees That" | Mawlana Ibrahim Gaffoor | ROOTED Ep. 11
"Nobody Sees That" | Mawlana Ibrahim Gaffoor | ROOTED Ep. 11 Oct 7, 2026 4842 Mawlana Ibrahim Gaffoor has been the imam of Masjid al-Ikhlas in Hanover Park for thirty years and taught at Dar al-Ulum al-Arabiyyah al-Islamiyyah in Strand for twenty-two, across the staff room from Mawlana Taha Karaan. His students called him Mawlana Gaff. He taught this episode's host, and he was the one who took him by the hand and showed him how to wash the dead.This sitting is his own c
"If You Pay Me A Million A Month, I Won't Stay" | Mawlana Khalil Hendricks | ROOTED Ep. 10
"If You Pay Me A Million A Month, I Won't Stay" | Mawlana Khalil Hendricks | ROOTED Ep. 10 Sep 25, 2026 5648 Mawlana Khalil Hendricks left a corporate career in Johannesburg for Syria on the strength of an ayah that would not leave him alone: people who meet the angels having wronged themselves, and whose excuse is that they were made weak in the place where they were. He came back and built, with Mu'allimah Radia Bawa Hendricks, a set of institutions that now runs from a Sunday class for adults who
"We Resisted When It Wasn't Fashionable" | Prof. Farid Esack on the Struggle Years (Part 2)
"We Resisted When It Wasn't Fashionable" | Prof. Farid Esack on the Struggle Years (Part 2) Sep 21, 2026 5688 "We resisted at a time when it was not fashionable." Everybody claims the struggle afterwards; very few were in it.In the second sitting of this series, Shaykh Irshaad Sedick takes up the story where Part 1 left off: Farid Esack comes home from eight years in the madrasas of Karachi to a country about to catch fire. He joins the Muslim Judicial Council and drafts its constitution. He helps
She Qualified in Damascus Through Dua | Shaykhah Ruqayyah Samsodien | Rooted Ep 9
She Qualified in Damascus Through Dua | Shaykhah Ruqayyah Samsodien | Rooted Ep 9 Sep 18, 2026 4993 Shaykhah Ruqayyah Samsodien flew to Damascus at eighteen and hung a sign around her neck in the dormitory that read, in bubble letters, "I don't speak English" — so that nobody would speak to her in it, and she would be forced into Arabic.She came home an alimah.In this episode of ROOTED, Shaykh Irshaad Sedick sits with one of the very few fully qualified female scholars in South Afric
One of the Shortest Chains to Sahih al-Bukhari in the World | Mawlana Ashraf Lamara | Rooted Ep. 8
One of the Shortest Chains to Sahih al-Bukhari in the World | Mawlana Ashraf Lamara | Rooted Ep. 8 Sep 11, 2026 3606 Mawlana Ashraf Lamara holds one of the shortest chains of transmission to Sahih al-Bukhari in the world — four links to Shah Waliullah al-Dihlawi — and until last year almost nobody outside a handful of scholars knew it.In this episode of Rooted, Shaykh Irshaad Sedick sits with one of Cape Town's senior ulama: a founding teacher of Qaasimul Uloom, who has taught there since its first day in 19
“You Don’t Worship the Teacher” | Mawlana Zakariyah Philander | ROOTED Ep. 7
“You Don’t Worship the Teacher” | Mawlana Zakariyah Philander | ROOTED Ep. 7 Sep 4, 2026 6957 When I was eleven years old, I walked into an afternoon madrasa in Retreat, and the man at the front of that room was the first qualified Islamic scholar I ever had as a teacher. He is the reason I wanted to become an alim. He is the reason I found Darun Na’im. And when I wanted to leave school in Grade 10 to study full-time, he and my father sat down together and decided I would finish school fir
A Child of the Jamaat | Prof. Farid Esack on Being a Muslim in South Africa (Part 1)
A Child of the Jamaat | Prof. Farid Esack on Being a Muslim in South Africa (Part 1) Sep 4, 2026 4238 Long before he was a professor, before the struggle, before the academy — Farid Esack was a boy in Bontheuwel raised by a single mother, and a child of the Tablighi Jamaat.In this first sitting of a new series from Isnad Academy, Shaykh Irshaad Sedick sits with Professor Farid Esack — his own Master's supervisor — to trace a life: the Group Areas Act and a move from Wynberg, a mother who stood
He Knew Every Hafiz in Cape Town | Imam Fuad Samaai | Rooted Ep. 6
He Knew Every Hafiz in Cape Town | Imam Fuad Samaai | Rooted Ep. 6 Aug 28, 2026 6249 In the 1960s, thirty-four men in the whole of Cape Town carried the Quran in their hearts, and Imam Fuad Samaai knew every one of them by name.“The chain is made in the maktab, or it is not made at all.”In 1973 he was one of eight students in the first intake of South Africa’s first Darul Uloom, in Newcastle. There, Mawlana Qasim Sema (Allah have mercy on him) gave him the instruction that set the
He Left a Maths Career for the Deen | Mawlana Zakariyya Harnekar | ROOTED Ep. 5
He Left a Maths Career for the Deen | Mawlana Zakariyya Harnekar | ROOTED Ep. 5 Aug 21, 2026 4700 He had top marks, a UCT mathematics degree, and lucrative bursary offers on the table — a clear road to actuarial science and comfortable money. He walked away from all of it, into the Darul Uloom of Mufti Taha Karaan (Allah have mercy on him), and says he would make that decision "every single day of my life again."In this episode of ROOTED, Shaykh Irshaad Sedick sits down with his former
Be a Seeker, and Remain a Seeker — Shaykh Riyad Walls' Journey to Knowledge | ROOTED (Ep 4 Part 2)
Be a Seeker, and Remain a Seeker — Shaykh Riyad Walls' Journey to Knowledge | ROOTED (Ep 4 Part 2) Jul 31, 2026 4608 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 hi

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