Ebrahim Kazim was born in Bombay, India, where his parents had settled after having migrated from Dubai. He was one of eighteen children and was brought up in a typical Muslim home. He acquired his primary education in a Persian school and his secondary education in St. Xavier’s College, Bombay. In 1948 he obtained his M.B.B.S. degree from Grant Medical College and in the same year married his colleague, Dr. Joan Homaida Mohammed, of Trinidad and Tobago. In 1949, he came to Trinidad where he was employed by the Ministry of Health in the General Hospital, San Fernando. In 1952, he proceeded to the United Kingdom for further studies and obtained D.T.M. & H. from the School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool. In 1962, he became the Member of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh (M.R.C.P.). Thereafter, he returned to Trinidad and was appointed Specialist Medical Officer in the General Hospital, Port-of-Spain.