Zaib Shaikh

Zaib Shaikh (born 1974) is the City of Toronto Film Commissioner and Director of Entertainment Industries. He has also been a Canadian actor, writer and director. His roles included 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.

Shaikh has appeared in Metropia and Little Mosque on the Prairie, and 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 appeared as Nadir Khan in Deepa Mehta's film adaptation of Midnight's Children. He guest starred as Professor Mahmoud Bahmanyaron in an episode of Murdoch Mysteries which aired March 18, 2013.

Shaikh 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, Shaikh was a copy editor for the campus newspaper, The Medium. He has a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of British Columbia.