Dr. Zafar Ishaq Ansari is Director General, Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Islamic Studies (McGill University, Montreal Canada) and has taught at the University of Karachi, Princeton University, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and International Islamic University, Islamabad.

He is the editor of the quarterly journal Islamic Studies and is a member of the editorial board of Journal of Islamic Studies, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Journal of Qur’anic Studies and Studies in Contemporary Islam. He is also a member of the international scientific committee appointed by UNESCO for the academic supervision of its 6-volume series on various aspects of Islamic Culture, and co-editor of its first volume, The Foundations of Islam. He has contributed a large number of research articles to journals of international repute and to Encyclopaedia Britannica and Encyclopaedia of Religions. He is currently editing and translating Sayyid Abul ‘Ala Mawdudi’s Tafhim al-Qur’an under the title Towards Understanding of the Qur’an (Islamic Foundation, Leicester); so far seven volumes have been published.