Zaid Shakir is a Muslim American scholar and co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California. He teaches courses on Arabic, law, history, and Islamic spirituality. He is co-founder and chairman of United For Change, whose stated goal is to leverage the diversity of the Muslim and interfaith community and address divisive obstacles. In 2015, he signed the official Memorandum of Understanding between Zaytuna College and Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. He is one of the signatories of A Common Word Between Us and You, an open letter by Islamic scholars to Christian leaders, calling for peace and understanding. Inspired to work with religious groups on sustainable living and climate change, he is a Green Faith partner in action for the earth. The mission is to inspire, educate, organize, and mobilize people of diverse religious and spiritual backgrounds globally for environmental action. Imam Zaid is a signatory along with religious and spiritual Leaders from around the world who presented the UN Secretary General with a declaration in support of the Paris Climate Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, marking the largest number of nations ever signing an international agreement.
Early life
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. These early experiences instilled in him a compassionate and realistic work ethic, as well as an unshakeable desire for social change and economic justice. He converted to Islam in 1977 while serving in the United States Air Force and shortly after changed his name to Zaid Salim Shakir.
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, 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.
Views
As reported in The New York Times, Zaid Shakir appeared with nine other influential Muslim scholars in a YouTube video denouncing militant Islam. The aftermath of 911 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." 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." Shakir states in Scapegoats: How Islamophobia Helps Our Enemies & Threatens Our Freedoms, “Sharia forbids members of a Muslim minority 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 and stoning women."
Reception
of the world edition 2020 describes Imam Zaid Shakir as "an influential Islamic scholar and a voice of conscience for American Muslims and non-Muslims alike.", edited by John Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin Tikkun Daily states that he is "one of the most thoughtful and dynamic teachers about the true nature of Islam in America today". Imam Zaid 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.”
Publications
Books authored
Books translated with additions
Books which include his foreword or note
Books edited
Joseph Lumbard, Submission, faith and beauty: the religion of Islam. Co-edited with Hamza Yusuf.
