Sheikh Bilal Ismail was born in Durban, South Africa. He is one of three siblings and comes from a religious traditional hanafi family. He memorized the Quran while studying at school and went on to complete high school in 1998. Sheikh Bilal then went on to do a diploma in Computer Science in 1999, as well as qualifying as a Microsoft certified systems engineer. He was accepted into the Islamic University of Madinah in 2001 where he completed his Diploma in Arabic followed by a BA in Islamic Law from the faculty of Shariah. In this episode, Sheikh Bilal discussed his interest in Ottoman history and covers some of the content discussed in his course "Ertugrul to Ataturk."