Imam Ahmad Deeb

Assalamu alaykum,

As I pursue my own spiritual journey, I want to hear from those who have taken this path before me. This podcast focuses on them and listening to their stories — uninterrupted. My name is Hebah Masood and I invite you to reflect on the trajectories of their lives, and the guidance and blessings provided by Allah swt along that journey.

Imam Ahmad Deeb's grandfather Dr. Sheikh Ramadan Deeb, one of the oldest living scholars in Damascus, is a renowned Syrian scholar who built important bridges between western and eastern scholarship. Imam Deeb grew up watching his father Shaykh Abdallah Deeb lead a Muslim community in Orlando, Florida.

But, even though he was born into a family of Muslim scholars, Imam Deeb struggled as a teenager seeking answers to fundamental questions about religion.

It wasn’t until university when he began attending a local halaqa and listening online to Shaykh Hamza Yusuf that Imam Deeb felt his mind and his heart begin to find a connection to Islam. Upon graduation he turned his focus to seeking knowledge at a higher level. 

Shaykh Muhammad bin Yahya al-Husayni al-Ninowy, a family friend, invited him to join a Madina Institute pilot program he was starting in South Africa. Imam Ahmad Deeb spent a year at the Madina Institute in Cape Town. When he returned he continued studying with local scholars, including his father, and began a Masters in Islamic Studies at Bayan Islamic Graduate School in Claremont, California.

Today, Imam Ahmad Deeb is the imam at Islamic Center of Greater Toledo, located in one of the oldest muslim communities in North America. He is the co-founder of Pillars Semin