Zaib Shaikh
Toronto 43° 39' 12.53" N, 79° 23' 2.16" W Actor Person
Zaib Shaikh is a Canadian actor, writer and director. He is best known for his current roles as Amaar Rashid, an imam in the CBC Television sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie, and Jayesh in Metropia, an evening soap opera broadcast on Omni Television.
As well as Metropia and Little Mosque on the Prairie, Shaikh appeared as Vancouver city councillor Shakil Khan in Da Vinci's City Hall. He is co-founder of the Whistler Theatre Project, and also writer and director of the CBC adaptation of Othello. He will appear as Nadir Khan in Winds of Change, Deepa Mehta's adaptation of Midnight's Children.
He was born in Toronto at St. Michael's Hospital and is of Pakistani descent. He studied theatre at the University of Toronto Mississauga and has a Bachelor of Arts from the Sheridan College Institute of Advanced Learning. While at the University of Toronto, he was a copy editor for the campus newspaper, The Medium. He has a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of British Columbia.
He is married to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation executive Kirstine Stewart.