In the year 1988 Muhammad Shaikh maintained a brief association with the late Ahmed Deedat, South African scholar of comparative religion and founder of Islamic Propagation Center International (IPCI). Initially Muhammad Shaikh was the main distributor of Deedat’s videos in Pakistan and was much inspired by his lectures on comparative religion. During Deedat’s tour of Pakistan, he used to muster support for his talks and also organized his lectures in Karachi. In 1988 Muhammad Shaikh was selected by Deedat to undergo training on Daw’ah and comparative religion at the IPCI in Durban, South Africa where he was joined by Daee’s from around the globe.

It can be observed that although a brief student-teacher relationship was maintained, Muhammad Shaikh does not follow Ahmed Deedat in entirety. He has adopted Ahmed Deedat’s approach on Biblical criticism and Muslim-Christian dialogue, but a comparative analysis of the lectures of these two speakers demonstrates that they have different positions on a variety of issues. E.g. while Ahmed Deedat considers some parts of the Judeo-Christian Scripture to be divine, Muhammad Shaikh maintains that it is entirely a man-made work. Similarly Ahmed Deedat’s lectures were more about analyzing Christianity and its sources from a Muslim standpoint, while Muhammed Shaikh’s presentation is more about Qur’anic exegesis, and how it differs from the Bible. While this disparity is evident, Muhammad Shaikh holds the highest reverence for his former teacher, and continues to broadcast his debates and lectures through IIPC TV.