Al Akkad was born on July 1, 1930 in Aleppo in the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. He received his high school degree from the Aleppo American College. His father, then a customs officer, gave him $200 and a copy of the Quran before he left for the United States to study film direction and production at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Akkad spent a further three years studying for a Master’s degree at the University of Southern California (USC), where he met the director Sam Peckinpah. Peckinpah became Akkad’s mentor in Hollywood and hired him as a consultant for a film about the Algerian War that never made it to the big screen, but he continued to encourage him until he found a job as a producer at CBS.

In 1976, he produced and directed Mohammad, Messenger of God (released as The Message in 1977 in the United States), starring Anthony Quinn and Irene Papas. Akkad faced resistance from Hollywood, which forced him to make the film in Morocco.

Akkad saw the film as a way to bridge the gap between the Western and Muslim worlds, stating in a 1976 interview:

In 1978, he helped make low-budget film history when he produced Halloween. Akkad became best known for his key involvement in the first eight Halloween movies, as an executive producer (the only producer to participate in all of these films). The series was highly profitable.

In 1980 he directed Lion of the Desert, in which Quinn and Irene Papas were joined by Oliver Reed, Rod Steiger, and John Gielgud. It was about the real-life Bedouin leader Omar Mukhtar (Quinn), who fought Benito Mussolini’s Italian troops in the deserts of Libya. The movie is now critically acclaimed, after initially receiving negative publicity in the West for being partially funded by Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who invested $35 million in the movie. This negative publicity may have been the cause of its relatively poor performance at the box office. Clint Morris describes the movie as: “A grand epic adventure that’ll stand as a highpoint in the producing career of Moustapha Akkad.”

Akkad and his 34-year-old daughter, Rima Akkad Monla, were killed in the 2005 Amman bombings. They were both in the lobby at the Grand Hyatt Amman on 9 November when a bomb exploded; his daughter died instantly, and Akkad died of his injuries two days later in a hospital. Akkad survived by his former wife, Patricia Al Akkad and their sons, Taric and Malek, who helped produce most of the Halloween movies, as well as his widow, Suha Ascha Akkad, and their son Zaid.

He was honoured by his native city of Aleppo, and the Aleppo City Council has renamed a school and a street after Moustapha Akkad. In 2008, a street in downtown Beirut was renamed after Moustapha Akkad. The 2007 remake of Halloween was dedicated to Moustapha Akkad. The 2018 film Halloween, a direct sequel to the 1978 original film that ignores all other films in the franchise, also features a dedication to Akkad in the end credits.