Zainab Khan (also Masood) is a character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Nina Wadia. She made her first appearance on 16 July 2007. Zainab is the mother of Syed (Marc Elliott), Shabnam (Zahra Ahmadi/Rakhee Thakrar), Tamwar (Himesh Patel) and Kamil Masood (Arian Chikhlia). She is the wife of Masood Ahmed (Nitin Ganatra), who divorces her, and of Yusef Khan (Ace Bhatti), who she remarries after a divorce decades earlier, and who abuses her. Wadia quit her role in 2012 and departed the series in the episode shown on 8 February 2013.