Imam Zaid Shakir was born in Berkeley, California, and accepted Islam in 1977 while serving in the United States Air Force. He graduated summa cum laude and earned a B.A. in International Relations at the American University in Washington D.C. and an M.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University. While overseas in Egypt, Syria, and Morocco, he studied Arabic and traditional Islamic sciences including Islamic law, Qur'an, and Islamic spirituality. He co-founded Masjid Al-Islam in Connecticut and taught Political Science at Southern Connecticut State University. He has written numerous articles for various magazines, journals, newspapers, and translated several books from Arabic into English including "Heirs of the Prophets." Imam Zaid Shakir currently teaches full-time at the Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California, as a scholar-in-residence.