Muhammed Zafar Iqbal was born on 23 December 1952 in Sylhet. His father, Foyzur Rahman Ahmed, was a police officer. Because of his father's occupation, he traveled to various parts of the country as a child. Zafar Iqbal was inspired by his father for writing at an early life.He wrote his first science fiction work at the age of seven. On 5 May 1971, the Pakistan Army captured his father and killed him in front of a river. Iqbal had to dig his father’s grave to convince his mother of her husband's death.He passed SSC exam from Bogra Zilla School in 1968 and HSC exam from Dhaka College in 1970. He earned his BSc in physics from Dhaka University in 1976. Then Iqbal went to University of Washington to obtain his PhD. He earned the degree in 1982. He worked as a post-doctoral researcher at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) from 1983 to 1988. He then joined Bell Communications Research (Bellcore), a separate corporation from the Bell Labs, which is now known as Telcordia Technologies, as a Research Scientist. He left the institute in 1994 and joined the faculty of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology.qbal married Yasmeen Haque in 1978. She is currently serving as the head of the Department of Physics at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology. They have two children - son Nabil and daughter Yeshim. Yeshim translated the book Amar Bondhu Rashed (Rashed, My Friend) written by her father. Iqbal's elder brother, Humayun Ahmed, is a writer and film-maker and artist. His younger brother, Ahsan Habib, is the editor of the satirical magazine, Unmad (Mad) and a cartoonist. ghashphul