Haitham Talaat

Haitham ibn Talaat ibn Ali Srour is an Egyptian physician, researcher and preacher known for his critique of atheism and his answers to religious doubts, born in 1981 in Upper Egypt. He took his bachelor's degree in medicine and surgery in 2004, then devoted himself to the atheism file in research, books and debates, writing dozens of books, founding courses and an academy to train debaters, and building an Arabic YouTube channel that has become one of the largest Arabic archives specialising in answering doubts. ^{1 2 3}

The sources conflict on his birthplace: the information table of his biography in the Alsiyars encyclopedia of contemporary figures places it in Minya in Upper Egypt, while the academic study published in the Samarra Journal for Human Studies places it in Asyut Governorate. Both agree on the year 1981 and on the bachelor's degree in medicine and surgery in 2004. The museum records the conflict as it stands, without preferring either. ^{1 2}

The encyclopedia says he studied medicine at Minya University and graduated as a practising physician, and that his research formation combined grounding in the Islamic tradition — above all the works of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim and the transmitted commentaries — with reading the Western "new atheism" literature in its own language, from Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennett to the critics of Darwinism and materialism. ¹

He was formerly director of the Humanities Department at the Braheen Center, and a researcher in the creeds and sects department of the al-Minhaj Center, as the academic study records, and he conducts digital outreach through YouTube channels in Arabic, English and Spanish. ²

According to the encyclopedia, he founded the course "Fortifying the Muslim Mind" and the Ababeel Academy for training debaters against atheists, and presented the programme "Hayran" (Perplexed) with Amr Abdel Galil. ¹

The academic study describes his method as employing the scriptural texts and the tools of modern scientific research in building his answers, and gathers it into pillars including: strengthening certainty rather than merely defending; documented scientific response, simplifying the material and verifying quotations from their original, especially Western, sources; creedal grounding, tying cosmic questions to the proofs of the Creator's existence; the "Atheists' Clinic" style of question and answer for dismantling doubts; and criticism of the figures of the "new atheism" in his book "Priests of Atheism". ²

The encyclopedia summarises his project as dismantling materialist systems, arming young people with certainty, and defending the constants of the Sharia; it became a mark of his work to distinguish "microevolution" within a single species from "macroevolution" and the claim of a common ancestor, and he answered science-popularising programmes that pass atheistic claims, deniers of the Sunna, and the "energy" religions and energy healing, which he named "spiritual atheism". This is a presentation of his positions as his sources describe them, not a verdict by the museum. ¹

The encyclopedia lists among his books: "Basa'ir Encyclopedia", "40 Errors in the Theory of Evolution", "Debating the Atheists", "Priests of the New Atheism", "Capsules to Silence the Atheists", "Either Faith or Chaos", "Encyclopedia of Answers to Arab Atheists", "Return to Faith", "Atheism Poisons Everything", "Spiritual Atheism and Its Danger to Creed and Reason", "Woman between Islam and Atheism", "Renounce Your Atheism" and "How to Call to Islam". The academic study records "Renounce Your Atheism" among his books translated into English. ^{1 2}

The description of his Arabic YouTube channel presents it as Dr Haitham Talaat's channel for answering atheism, atheists, agnosticism, deism and the authors of doubts, specialising in answering the "priests of atheism" and criticising their scepticism, and carrying his debates and lectures; individual videos on it have passed two million views, as the channel stood when checked on 25 October 2026. ³

The encyclopedia — a source sympathetic to him, whose words are attributed to it — writes that a wide audience of young people gathered around him, that preaching circles received his work favourably, and that his opponents among atheists, secularists and feminists attacked him and reported his platforms. The museum records these descriptions attributed to their source, without adopting them. ¹

• Alsiyars encyclopedia of contemporary figures, "Haitham Talaat — biography" (alsiyars.com), checked 25 October 2026.
• "Dr Haitham Talaat and his role in addressing atheism", Samarra Journal for Human Studies, vol. 22, no. 88 (June 2026).
• His Arabic YouTube channel (UCLj8UFOcdFrvlh24Lw7jrgA), description and uploads checked 25 October 2026.