
Shekhar Gupta: Hello and welcome to walk the talk. I am Shekhar Gupta in Bombay's Worli sea face and my guest this week, well, I could describe him rock star of tele-evangelism, but surprise of surprises, he is not preaching what you would expect tele-evangelists to preach. He is preaching Islam, modern Islam, and not just Islam but his own interpretation of all the faiths around the world. 43-year-old Zakir Naik. Welcome to walk the talk
Zakir Naik: Hi, nice meeting you. It's a pleasure.
Shekhar Gupta: Nice meeting you. An Islamic preacher, dressed in suit and tie, using medium of television, when you would expect in these times of sort of Talibanisation, people would think that Islamic preachers are telling Muslims to throw television sets away. You are a different kind of person
Zakir Naik: No actually I follow, as you said, that modern Islam , I believe interpretation of Koran and Hadith . I go back to the original sources. When I speak about religion, I go back to the original scriptures. When I speak about Hindu religion I go back to the Veda, when I speak about Islam I go back to the Koran and the authentic Hadith and then I present it to the world
Shekhar Gupta: By doing that you build this following of literally, crores and crores of people around the world
Zakir Naik: Ahem ulla. It's god's grace.
Shekhar Gupta: You said you go to the original sources, so are you suggesting that many others who use the medium of Islam to put many restrictions, watching television for example, going to a model school, particularly for women, they are not reading the original scriptures?
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