Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi was born in India, grew up in East Africa, and currently resides in Canada. He studied in the Hawza-e ‘Ilmiyya in Qum from 1972 to 1982, attending Dars-e Kharij of the Grand Ayatollah Wahid Khurasani.
From 1983 to 1991, Sayyid Rizvi was Imam of the Shi’a Muslim Community of BC, Canada, and in 1991 he attained an MA in History from Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada. From 1991 to 1996, he held the position of Director of Islamic Education and Information Centre in Toronto. In 1996, Sayyid Rizvi became Chief Imam of Islamic Shi’a Ithna-‘Asheri Jamaat of Toronto – a position he still holds today.
Sayyid Rizvi has authored many books on Shi’a Islam; these include Marriage and Morals in Islam (1990), Shi’ism: Imamate and Wilayat (1999), Islam: Faith, Practice and History (2004), and Business Ethics in Islam (2007). Some of his publications have been translated into many languages. His three-volume work, An Explanatory Translation of the Qur’an, which covered half of the Qur’an, was published in the 1980s. He has now completed the other half and the entire work will soon be published.