Zaid Shakir

Shakir was born in 1956 in Berkeley, California as Ricky Daryl Mitchell to a family descended from African, Irish and Native American roots. His formative years were spent in housing projects in New Britain, Connecticut. He converted to Islam in 1977 while serving in the United States Air Force and shortly after changed his name to Zaid Salim Shakir."The Cambridge Companion to American Islam / Converts and Conversations", https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-american-islam/converts-and-conversions/397C72A1EFD4CF418BC4FA78EB91D805

A summa cum laude graduate, he obtained a BA in International Relations at American University in Washington, D.C., earned his MA in Political Science at Rutgers University.{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=Zaid Shakir |url=https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/people/zaid-shakir |access-date=2024-03-21 |website=berkleycenter.georgetown.edu |language=en}} He then left for Syria to pursue 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, Quranic studies, and spirituality with Islamic scholars such as Sheikh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāghūrī"Al-hada’iq al-nadiyya fī al-nasamat al-ruhiyya ("The Dewy Gardens in the Spiritual Breezes"), Damascus, Dār fajr al-‘urūba, 2nd ed., 1998", al-Shāghūrī and Sheikh Mustafa Al-Turkmani. In 2001, he was the first American male graduate from Syria's Abu Nour University with a BA in Islamic Sciences.

Zaytuna College

In 2003, as a scholar-in-residence at Zaytuna Institute located in California, Shakir began to teach Arabic, Law, and Islamic spirituality. In 2004, he initiated a pilot seminary program at Zaytuna Institute, which was useful in Zaytuna College's refinement of its Islamic Studies curriculum and its educational philosophy. For four years, students in the pilot program were engaged in the study of contemporary and classical texts. And, in the fall of 2010, he and his colleagues Hamza Yusuf, and Hatem Bazian co-founded the Berkeley, California based Zaytuna College, a four-year Muslim liberal arts college, the first of its kind in the United States,{{Cite web|url=https://zaytuna.edu/about|title=About|website=Zaytuna College|accessdate=September 6, 2023}} dedicated to "educate and prepare morally committed professional, intellectual, and spiritual leaders", who are grounded in the Islamic scholarly tradition and conversant with the cultural currents and critical ideas shaping modern society. In 2016, Zaytuna College became the first accredited Muslim campus in the United States after it received approval from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.{{cite news |url=http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-muslim-college-accreditated-20150311-story.html|title=Muslim college gains accreditation|work=Los Angeles Times |access-date=March 12, 2015 |first=Jason |last=Song|date=March 11, 2015}}{{cite news |url=http://tribune.com.pk/story/852075/us-gets-its-first-accredited-muslim-college/|title=US gets its first accredited Muslim college

|work=The Express Tribune|access-date=March 12, 2015 |date=March 12, 2015}}

As reported in The New York Times, Zaid Shakir appeared with nine other influential Muslim scholars in a YouTube video denouncing militant Islam.{{cite news|title=Tuesday's intriguing people|url=http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/03/tuesdays-intriguing-people-22/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100804023714/http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/03/tuesdays-intriguing-people-22/|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 4, 2010|access-date=October 23, 2011|newspaper=CNN|date=August 3, 2010|author=Sidney Harman}}{{cite news|title=New College Teaches Young American Muslims|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129607436|access-date=October 23, 2011|newspaper=NPR|date=September 8, 2010|author=Barbara Bradley Hagerty}}{{cite news | author=Laurie Goodstein | title=American Muslims Make Video to Rebut Militants | date=July 31, 2010 | work=New York Times | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/us/01imams.html | access-date=2018-07-23}} The aftermath of 9/11 Shakir states, "People all over the world have felt the repercussions and the reprisals for the senseless brutality of 9/11's perpetrators. Our best hope is to attempt to move beyond the pain, strife and hatred unleashed. Trusting in the power and promise of God we will be able to do just that."{{cite news|title=9/11 - The day the world changed|url=http://www.emel.com/article?id=89&a_id=2470|access-date=September 11, 2011|author1=Sarah Joseph |author2=Jeremy Henzell-Thomas |author3=Imam Zaid Shakir |name-list-style=amp }}

The Chronicle of Higher Education has praised him, stating, "Embodying an American story if ever there was one—including proverbial bootstraps, military service, political activism, and deep religious commitment—Zaid Shakir's message of social justice in the face of poverty and racism he has known first hand makes him endlessly and, it often seems, effortlessly relevant. He is as approachable a man as I've ever met."{{Cite web | title=New Islamic Directions | url=http://www.newislamicdirections.com/nid/about/feedback#sthash.oen7pcXz.dpuf// | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071015152851/http://newislamicdirections.com:80/nid/about/feedback/ | access-date=2025-01-02 | archive-date=2007-10-15}}"The Cambridge Companion to American Islam / Sexual Identity, Marriage, and Family", {{doi|10.1017/CCO9781139026161.021}}

Shakir states in Scapegoats: How Islamophobia Helps Our Enemies & Threatens Our Freedoms, "Sharia forbids members of a Muslim minority [in Western societies] from engaging in clandestine acts of violence and paramilitary organizing... or from acting as political or military agents for a Muslim-majority country. Islamic law also forbids the disruption of public safety, many of the practices that the average person fearfully associates with some Muslims today, like killing innocent people (non-Muslims and Muslims alike) and stoning women."{{cite news|title=Sharia Is Nothing to Fear|url=https://time.com/4409437/sharia-law-xenophobia//|access-date=July 16, 2016|magazine=TIME|date=July 16, 2016|author=Arsalan Iftikhar}}

The 500 Most Influential Muslims of the world edition 2020 describes Zaid Shakir as "an influential Islamic scholar and a voice of conscience for American Muslims{{Cite web|url=https://themuslim500.com/guest-contributions-2017/muhammad-ali-a-humble-mountain/|title=Muhammad Ali: A Humble Mountain|website=The Muslim 500|date=May 20, 2018 |accessdate=September 6, 2023}} and non-Muslims alike", edited by John Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin

{{Blockquote

|text=Imam Zaid Shakir spoke the last words Ali heard on his deathbed. He leans over and with his mouth close to Ali's right ear, he sings, "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger." Shakir begins talking to Ali, entreating him, exhorting him, telling him, "Muhammad Ali, this is what it means, God is one; say it, repeat it, you've inspired so many, paradise is waiting -- ".{{cite web|title=The Greatest, At Rest|url=https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/19409912/the-planning-muhammad-ali-funeral/|publisher=ESPN|access-date=June 12, 2017|author=Tom Junod|date=June 12, 2017}} He was, in Shakir's description, "a praying man" who understood he belonged to Allah. But he also knew he was Muhammad Ali, and so belonged to the world".{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}

|author=

|title="The Greatest, At Rest"

|source=ESPN - The Magazine's June 12 World Fame Issue

}}

Tikkun Daily states that he is "one of the most thoughtful and dynamic teachers about the true nature of Islam in America today".{{cite web|title=Imam Zaid Shakir on the Tikkun Phone Forum|url=http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/06/25/imam-zaid-shakir-on-the-tikkun-phone-forum/|publisher=United Nations|access-date=October 23, 2011|author=Daniel Burke and Madeleine Stix|date=June 25, 2009}}

Zaid Shakir was named in CNN's 2018 list of "25 Influential American Muslims", where he was described as "one of the West's most respected Muslim scholars."{{cite web|title=25 Influential American Muslims|url=https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/05/us/influential-muslims/#shakir|publisher=CNN|access-date=January 1, 2020|author=Daniel Burke and Madeleine Stix|date=May 6, 2018}}

File:Habib umar with imam zaid shakir.jpg in Oakland, CA, 2011]]

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Category:1950 births

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