Hearts That Think, See, and Remember: The Qur'an and the Secrets of the Spiritual Heart

Ekram Haque is a Pakistani-American Muslim writer and journalist whose published works on the Prophetic biography for younger readers — particularly his accessible Muhammad: The Last Prophet biographical series — have been continuously stocked in Islamic bookstores serving North American Muslim families for more than two decades. He emigrated from Pakistan to the United States as a young man and has built his career at the intersection of journalism and Islamic publishing.

Haque's writing is calibrated specifically for children and young readers — distilling the major events and ethical themes of the Sira (Prophetic biography) into chapter-length narrative episodes that retain historical accuracy while remaining engaging at a middle-reader level. His books are widely used in Islamic schools, weekend madrasahs, and homeschool curricula across North America, and his work has helped fill the persistent gap in age-appropriate Sira material available in English. He has also contributed to Muslim community journalism and writing for adult audiences through articles in American Muslim periodicals.

Specific biographical details — including birth date and current institutional affiliation — remain unevenly documented in publicly available sources. His sustained contribution to the still-underdeveloped genre of accessible Sira material for American Muslim children has secured him a steady readership among parents, teachers, and weekend-school programs across the English-speaking Muslim world.

Dr. Mustafa Khattab is an Egyptian-Canadian imam, scholar, and the translator of The Clear Quran — the most widely circulated contemporary English translation of the Qur'an, distinguished for its accessible, natural prose and growing institutional adoption. He is a graduate of al-Azhar University, where he earned his bachelor's degree, master's degree, and PhD in Islamic Studies in English, and is a hafiz al-Qur'an. He has served as a religion specialist for Bridges Foundation in Cairo and as an interfaith specialist for the Canadian Council of Imams.

The Clear Quran, first published in 2015 after years of drafting, consultation, and review by a panel of senior scholars and English-language specialists, was designed to render the Qur'an in fluid, contemporary English while remaining faithful to classical tafsir. The translation has since been adopted by major mosques, da'wah organizations, and educational institutions across North America and beyond, and is paired with a comprehensive thematic commentary, a series for children, and a graded school curriculum. He has also produced parallel works including The Clear Quran Tafsir, The Clear Quran Dictionary, and a children's series.

Khattab has served as Director of Islamic Content at Bayyinah Institute and as a Fulbright Scholar at Clemson University, lecturing on Islam at American universities. He is currently the Imam of the Anatolia Islamic Centre in Mississauga, Ontario, and continues to teach, lecture, and publish on Qur'anic studies and Islamic education across North America.