Ibrahim El-Zayat is the son of Farouk El-Zayat, an Egyptian engineer who left Egypt in the 1960s and settled in Germany where he married a German convert to Islam and who lived in Marburg, a University town north of Frankfurt. Ibrahim grew up in Marburg where he attended the Martin-Luther-Schule (Gymnasium) in 1987.
He studied industrial engineering and management, law, and economics in Marburg, Darmstadt and Cologne and wrote a thesis on the Islamic economics.
Ibrahim El-Zayat is married to married Sabiha Erbakan, the sister of Mehmet Sabri Erbakan, for many years the General Secretary of Millî Görüş in Germany. Ibrahim El-Zayat became head of the Islamic Community of Germany (Islamische Gemeinschaft in Deutschland. Institute for Computer Graphics) in January 2002, following the resignation of Ali Ghaleb Himmat.
Ibrahim El Zayat served in that position for the maximum two-terms allowed by the constitution when he was replaced in January 2010.
He has also been a trustee of the Institut Européen des Sciences Humaines (IESH) at Chateau-Chinon / France. and a trustee of the Europe Trust. In 1995, Mr. El-Zayat co-founded the Gesellschaft Muslimischer Sozialund Geisteswissenschaftler/Innen e.V.“ (GMSG).
