- published: 24 Apr 2015
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A Salafi (Arabic: سلفي) is a Muslim who emphasises the Salaf ("predecessors" or "ancestors"), the earliest Muslims, as model examples of Islamic practice. The term has been in use since the Middle Ages but today refers especially to a follower of a modern Sunni Islamic movement known as the Salafiyyah, which is related to or includes Wahhabism, so that the two terms are sometimes erroneously viewed as synonymous. Salafism has become associated with literalist, strict and puritanical approaches to Islamic theology and, in the West, with the Salafi Jihadis who espouse violent jihad against civilians as a legitimate expression of Islam. Academics and historians use the term to denote "a school of thought which surfaced in the second half of the 19th century as a reaction to the spread of European ideas," and "sought to expose the roots of modernity within Muslim civilization."
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.