Imam Zaid Shakir is amongst the most respected and influential Muslim scholars in the West. Born in Berkeley, California, the second of seven children he accepted Islam in 1977 while serving in the United States Air Force. He then obtained a BA with honours in International Relations at American University in Washington D.C. and later earned his MA in Political Science at Rutgers University, where he emerged as an active leader in campus activities, helping to revive the Muslim Student Association, co-leading a successful South Africa divestment campaign, and co-founding a local Islamic centre, Masjid al-Huda. After a year in Cairo, Egypt, studying Arabic, he settled in New Haven, Connecticut and continued his tireless community activism, co-founding Masjid al-Islam, the Tri-State Muslim Education Initiative, and the Connecticut Muslim Coordinating Committee. As Imam of Masjid al-Islam from 1988 to 1994 he speared-headed a community renewal and grassroots anti-drug effort in the local neighbourhood, and taught as an Adjunct Professor of Political Science and Arabic at Southern Connecticut State University until his departure for Syria to further his studies in the traditional Islamic Sciences. For seven years in Syria and briefly in Morocco he immersed himself in an intense study of Arabic, Islamic law, Qur’anic studies, and Islamic spirituality with some of the top Muslim scholars of our age. In 2001, he graduated from Syria's prestigious Abu Nur University and returned to Connecticut to continue his work with the Muslim community in America.

Amongst several works that he has translated from Arabic into English, his translation of “The Heirs of the Prophets” was published by Starlatch Press in 2001. In 2003, he moved to Hayward, California with his family to serve as a scholar-in-residence and lecturer at Zaytuna Institute where he now teaches regular courses on Arabic, Islamic Law, History, and Islamic Spirituality.