Mazrui studied at schools in Mombasa, in Kenya. Mazrui obtained his B.A. with Distinction from Manchester University in Great Britain in 1960, his M.A. from Columbia University in New York in 1961, and his doctorate (DPhil) from Oxford University (Nuffield College) in 1966.

Upon completing his education at Oxford University, Mazrui joined the faculty of Makerere University (Kampala, Uganda), where he served as head of the Department of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. He served at Makerere University until 1973, when he was forced into exile by Idi Amin. In 1974, he joined the faculty of the University of Michigan as professor and later was appointed the Director of the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies (1978-1981). In 1989, he was appointed to the faculty of Binghamton University, State University of New York as the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies (IGCS).

In addition to his appointments as the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities, Professor in Political Science, African Studies, Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies (IGCS), Mazrui also holds three concurrent faculty appointments as Albert Luthuli Professor-at-Large in the Humanities and Development Studies at the University of Jos in Nigeria, Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large Emeritus and Senior Scholar in Africana Studies at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York and Chancellor of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya. In 1999, Mazrui retired as the inaugural Walter Rodney Professor at the University of Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana. Mazrui has also been a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, The University of Chicago, Colgate University, McGill University, National University of Singapore, Oxford University, Harvard University, Bridgewater State College, Ohio State University, and at other institutions in Cairo, Australia, Leeds, Nairobi, Teheran, Denver, London, Baghdad, and Sussex, amongst others.

In addition to his academic appointments, Mazrui has also served as President of the African Studies Association (USA) and as Vice-President of the International Political Science Association and has also served as Special Advisor to the World Bank. He has also served on the Board of the American Muslim Council, Washington, D.C.

Mazrui's research interests include African politics, international political culture, political Islam and North-South relations. He is author or co-author of more than twenty books. Mazrui has also published hundreds of articles in major scholastic journals and for public media. He has also served on the editorial boards of more than twenty international scholarly journals.

He first rose to prominence as a critic of some of the accepted orthodoxies of African intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s. He was critical of to African socialism and all strains of Marxism. He argued that communism was a Western import just as unsuited for the African condition as the earlier colonial attempts to install European type governments. He argued that a revised liberalism could help the continent and described himself as a proponent of a unique ideology of African liberalism.

At the same time he was a prominent critic of the current world order. He believed the current capitalist system was deeply exploitative of Africa, and that the West rarely if ever lived up to their liberal ideals. He has opposed Western interventions in the developing world, such as the Iraq War. He has also long been a critic of Israel's policies, being one of the first to try and link the treatment of Palestinians with South Africa's apartheid.

Especially in recent years, Mazrui has also become a well known commentator on Islam and Islamism. While utterly rejecting violence and terrorism Mazrui has praised some of the anti-imperialist sentiment that plays an important role in modern Islamic fundamentalism. He has also argued that sharia law is not incompatible with democracy.

In addition to his written work, Dr. Mazrui was also the creator of the television series A Triple Heritage, which was jointly produced by the BBC and the Public Broadcasting Service (WETA, Washington) in association with the Nigerian Television Authority. A book by the same title was jointly published by BBC Publications and Little, Brown and Company.

• Featured in upcoming Motherland 2009, directed by Owen Alik Shahadah which features key academics from around the continent of Africa. Ali Mazrui in Motherland film
• Main African Consultant and on-screen respondent, Programme on “A History Denied” in the television series on Lost Civilizations (NBC and Time-Life, 1996), U.S.A.
• Author of “The Bondage of Boundaries: Towards Redefining Africa”, article in the 150th anniversary issue of The Economist (London) (September) Vol. 328, No. 7828, 1993.
• Author and Narrator, “The Africans: A Triple Heritage”, BBC and PBS television series in cooperation with Nigerian Television Authority, 1986.
• Author and Broadcaster, "The African Condition", BBC Reith Radio Lectures, 1979, with book of the same title (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980)

Mazrui is a regular contributor to newspapers in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa, most notably The Nation (Nairobi), The Standard (Nairobi), The Monitor (Kampala), and The City Press (Johannesburg).

• Millennium Tribute for Outstanding Scholarship, House of Lords, Parliament Buildings, London, June 2000
• Special Award from the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (United Kingdom), honoring Mazrui for his contribution to the social sciences and Islamic studies, June 2000
• Honorary Doctorate of Letters from various universities for fields which include Divinity, Humane Letters, and the Sciences of Development
• Icon of the Twentieth Century, elected by Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, 1998
• Appointed Walter Rodney Professor, University of Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana, 1998
• Icon of the Twentieth Century Award, Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, 1998
• DuBois-Garvey Award for Pan-African Unity, Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, 1998
• Appointed Ibn-Khaldun Professor-at-Large, School of Islamic and Social Sciences, Leesburg, Virginia, 1997-2001
• Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1988
• Appointed Distinguished Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA (1986-1992)

Dr. Mazrui is ranked among the world's top 100 public intellectualsby readers of Prospect Magazine (UK) Foreign Policy Magazine (Washington, D.C.) (see The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll).