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.
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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