About
Mufti Mirza-Zain Baig is resident mufti of the Canadian Centre for Islamic Research and Iftā and principal of Dar Al-Ulum Montreal, where his work runs from classical jurisprudence to contemporary fatwā and the structuring of Shariah-compliant financial products.
He sits on Shariah supervisory boards across Canada, the United States and further afield, conducts internal Shariah audits, and reviews retail and commercial product lines against AAOIFI standards. He is an AAOIFI Certified Shariah Advisor and Auditor and holds a certificate in zakat management from the International Institute of Islamic Business and Finance.
He completed the ʿĀlim programme at Darul Uloom Canada and his iftā training at Darul Iftā Mahmudiyyah in South Africa under the late Mufti Ebrahim Desai — the lineage his method comes from. He holds a bachelor’s degree in education from Concordia University, is a certified teacher, and is reading for a master’s in educational leadership at the Université du Québec à Montréal alongside an executive master’s in Islamic finance at INCEIF.
How Mufti Mirza-Zain works
- Audits what was certified. Not what the structure says, but what the last twelve months of transactions actually did.
- Reads against the standard. Retail and commercial product lines tested line by line against AAOIFI.
- Explains it twice. Once for the board, once for the people who have to run it.