Ustadha Saiema was born in Toronto, Canada to parents of Pakistani origin. She attended, while doing her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, fiqh classes taught by Shaykh Talal Ahdab and attended the first Deen Intensive program in Toronto in 1997. She graduated in 1997 from the University of Toronto with an Honours degree in Psychology.

She then left for Damascus to study Arabic and the Islamic Sciences along with her husband, Shaikh Zahir Bacchus. Over the course of six years, she studied the science of Tajweed, Shaf'i fiqh, Arabic grammar, 'Aqeeda, and Methodology of Hadith. She studied under some of the distinguished scholars of Damascus attaining written permission to teach the Islamic sciences.

After completing her studies, she returned back to the University of Toronto and completed the Bachelor of Education program, while teaching various halaqahs in the city. She is currently residing in Brampton with her family where she continues to teach the Islamic Sciences as well as being a full-time teacher in the public school board.