Zainab Ismail was born and raised in New York City. She worked as a celebrity personal trainer and nutritionist for years before converting to Islam and beginning her work, Fit for Allah. It takes on prophetic traditions regarding health, medicine, and food and melds them with fitness practices. Ismail has traveled the globe teaching others how to be personal trainers, as well as post-rehabilitative techniques in universities and Olympic centers, through which she became a world-renowned teacher of trainers. Ismail currently works as a movement therapist and holistic nutritionist. She also spends time doing charity work with small pockets of Muslim communities in Chiapas, Mexico, rural provinces outside Havana, Cuba, and Medellin, Colombia. In her work with diverse communities, she explains, "I don't need to tell people about Islam. Our manners and behaviors show people, wow, you do all that: that's what your faith teaches you.”
