Zubayr Ali Za'i (25 June 195710 November 2013) was a Pakistani Islamic scholar and was considered a leading Ahl-i Hadith Salafi scholar of Pakistan.
Zubayr Ali Za'i was from the Pashtun tribe of Ali Za'i, itself a branch of the larger Durrani confederation, tracing their lineage to Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Durrani Empire.
He was born in 1957 in the village of Pirdad, near Hazro in the Attock District of Punjab.
He married in 1982 and had three sons (Tahir, Abdullah and Muaz) and four daughters. In addition to his native language of Hindko and Arabic, he was also fluent in English, Urdu, Pashto and Greek, and could read and understand Persian.
Ali Za'i completed a bachelor's degree and later on two master's degrees, one in Islamic studies in 1983 and another in the Arabic language in 1994 from the University of the Punjab in Lahore. Additionally, he graduated for a fourth time from the Salafi University in Faisalabad.
Ali Za'i was, like his former teacher Rashidi, a bibliophile, having amassed a private library of some renown in Hazro, where he spent most of his time.
Much of Ali Za'i work consists of editing and referencing ancient texts of prophetic tradition and evaluating them according to the Categories of Hadith. Working with Dar us Salam, he has reviewed the Al-Kutub al-Sittah, considered canonical in Sunni Islam. He also authored many books written in Urdu and Arabic. A book named "Noor ul Enain fi Masalate Rafa-ul-Yadain" has a list of all his works.
List of his books (published):
Ali Za'i died on 10 November 2013, at Benazir Bhutto Hospital in Rawalpindi, of lung failure.