Naik was born in Mumbai, India. He attended St. Peter's High School (ICSE) in the city of Mumbai. Later he joined the Kishinchand Chellaram College and then studied medicine at Topiwala National Medical College and Nair Hospital in his native city. He then received his MBBS degree from the University of Mumbai. In 1991 he started working in the field of Da'wah. Naik says he was inspired by the late Ahmed Deedat, who had himself been active in the field of Da'wah for more than 40 years. In 1994, Deedat called Naik "Deedat plus" and, in May 2000, awarded Naik with a plaque with the engraving "son what you have done in 4 years had taken me 40 years to accomplish, Alhamdullilah". According to Naik, his goal is to "concentrate on the educated Muslim youth who have become apologetic about their own religion and have started to feel the religion is outdated", and it was the duty of every Muslim to remove perceived misconceptions about Islam to counter what he considers as the Western media’s anti-Islamic bias in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks upon the United States. He has lectured and authored several books on Islam and comparative religion, as well as those directed towards removing misconceptions about Islam. Some of his articles are also published in Indian magazines like the Islamic Voice. Thomas Blom Hansen, an anthropologist, who held academic positions at various universities, has written that Naik's style of memorizing the Qur'an and hadith literature in various languages, preaching Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims alike and travelling abroad to debate Islam with theologians, has made him extremely popular in Muslim and non-Muslim circles. Although he regularly speaks to audiences of several hundreds,thousands ,and sometimes hundreds of housands, it is the videotapes and DVDs of his talks, which are widely distributed. His talks are usually recorded in English, to be broadcast at weekends on several cable networks in Mumbai's Muslim neighborhoods, and on the channel Peace TV, which he co-promotes. Topics he speaks on include: "Islam and Modern Science", "Islam and Christianity", and "Islam and secularism", among others. In an issue of Indian Express dated 22 February 2009, in a list of “100 Most Powerful Indians in 2009” amongst the billion plus population of India, Naik was ranked #82. In the special list of the “Top 10 Spiritual Gurus of India” Naik was ranked #3, after Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and was the only Muslim on that list.