Yasin Mazhar Siddiqui was born on 26 December 1944 in the Lakhimpur Kheri district of United Provinces of British India.
[2] He graduated in the traditional dars-e-nizami studies from Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama in 1959, and mastered in literature at the University of Lucknow in 1960.
[3] Siddiqui was appointed a research assistant in the history department of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in 1970.
He retired from the Institute of Islamic Studies on 31 December 2006 but retained the position of director of the Shah Waliullah Research Cell for ten years.
[3] Between 2000 and 2010, he arranged about ten national and international seminars about the different aspects of Shah Waliullah Dehlawi's life and wrote eighteen books.