The shahada (Arabic: الشهادة‎ aš-šahādah  audio (help·info)) (from the verb شهد šahida, “he witnessed”), means “to know and believe without suspicion, as if witnessed, testification”; it is the name of the Islamic creed. The shahada is the Muslim declaration of belief in the oneness of God (tawhid) and acceptance of Muhammad as God’s prophet. The declaration in its shortest form reads:

In Shia Islam, the creed is expanded with the addition of a phrase concerning Ali at the end:

The word shahādah is a noun stemming from the verb shahida, meaning “to observe, witness, or testify”; when used in legal terms, shahādah is a testimony to the occurrence of events, such as debt, adultery, or divorce. The shahādah can also be expressed in the dual form shahādatān (= "two testifyings"), which refers to dual act of observing or seeing and then the declaration of the observation. The two acts in Islam are observing or perceiving that there is no god but God and testifying or witnessing that Muhammad is the messenger of God. In a third meaning, shahādah can mean “martyrdom”, the shahid (“martyr”) demonstrating the ultimate expression of faith.

Owen 'Alik Shahadah (b. 1973) (Arabic: اليك شحادة) is a director, African writer, and scholar. He is an expert in African culture, African slavery, and the Arab slave trade. He is best known for authoring works, which deal with African history, social justice, environmental issues, education and world peace. Born in Hanover, Germany and educated in England, New York, and the Caribbean, Shahadah is of a new generation of African Diaspora filmmakers inspired by the likes of Malcolm X and Kwame Ture. He produces work that articulates a multidimensional African world perspective. Testimony to this is 500 Years Later and Motherland (film). As a cultural writer he is a leading critic of the terms black people and Sub-Saharan Africa, he states they are products of racism to undermine African history and cultural contributions. He argues for African agency and economic ownership of African culture by Africans.

Shahadah studied Aeronautical Engineering (BEng) in London and zoology (Bsc) at the University of the West Indies. Despite a science background his writings focus on revisiting academic racism and African history within an African framework. Notable he is author of arabslavetrade.com, a leading website on the Arab slave trade in Africa. He spent his teenage years growing up in Brooklyn New York. He also professes to a keen interest in anthropology, natural history, linguistics and is a qualified PADI divemaster (scuba diver).

Zakir Abdul Karim Naik (Urdu: ذاکر عبدالکریم نائیک; born 18 October 1965) is an Indian public speaker on the subject of Islam and comparative religion. He is the founder and president of the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), a non-profit organisation that owns the Peace TV channel based in Dubai, UAE. He is sometimes referred to as a televangelist. Before becoming a public speaker, he trained as a doctor. He has written two booklets on Islam and comparative religion. He is regarded as an exponent of the Salafi ideology; he places a strong emphasis on individual scholarship and the rejection of "blind Taqlid", which has led him to repudiate the relevance of sectarian or Madh'hab designations, all the while reaffirming their importance.

Zakir Abdul Karim Naik was born on 18 October 1965 in Mumbai, India. He attended St. Peter's High School in Mumbai. Later he enrolled at Kishinchand Chellaram College, before studying medicine at Topiwala National Medical College and Nair Hospital and later the University of Mumbai, where he obtained a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS). His wife, Farhat Naik, works for the women's section of the IRF.