Sheikh Mohammed Awal, Founder/Director of Zaitun Dawah Institute (ZDI), a think tank research center with headquarters in Seattle Washington State USA, and branches in NY, Atlanta, Nigeria, and Ghana.

Sheikh Awal is a scholar in Islamic Sciences, Comparative Religion and logic. He is an Islamic apologist, a debater, a motivational speaker and a prolific writer. He holds a diploma in Agric. Science and Irrigation Engineering from College of Irrigation and Surveying, and a degree from the prestigious Kaduna Polytechnic College of Environmental Studies both In Nigeria. He also bags a diploma in logic and philosophy from Seattle Institute of Advanced Studies.

In the course of dawah, Sheikh Awal has travels extensively across the continental USA giving lectures in colleges, universities, prisons, institutions, hospitals and the US armed forces facilities. He has travelled to Canada many times debating and presented papers on Islam on various issues at symposiums and inter-faith dialogue