I was raised in a very religious household - it wasn't dogma, but we were raised Christian; we went to church every Sunday, Bible study, Bible camp every summer.
I did study religion at Northwestern, and it was a very interesting time for me because I think it was the beginning of my personal journey in this understanding of the purpose that religion serves in our culture and in our individual lives. It serves to ground us and be our moral compass.
Many scholars are not used to perceiving natural knowledge expressed in mythological language. If the study of fossils was not mentioned by Aristotle or Thucydides, and it wasn't, then it just didn't exist for many classicists and ancient historians.
As you mature, you start reading and studying and researching, you start to really know what life is about.
The family's dream was to see me receive a high degree abroad and to return to become a university professor - on the door to my study room, a sign was placed reading 'Dr. Ahmed,' even though I was still far from becoming a doctor.
In the 1970s, what I, as a young foreign student studying in the United States, found most dynamic, exciting and impressive about this country is what much of the world continues to value most about the U.S. today: its open intellectual culture, its great universities, its capacity for discovery and innovation.
The mosque was the neighbourhood house of worship, but it was also the place where my high school friends and I came to study.
I had teachers in high school to point me in the direction of the University of Indiana School of Music, and after IU, I went on to study at the Academy of Arts in Philadelphia. I graduated in 2006.
I was in a Bible study, Henry Blackaby's 'Experiencing God,' and I started to experience God as I was reading the pages of this workbook and studying scripture with some friends, and we all just searching to fill that void in our lives.
I was studying to be an architect, I wasn't plotting to join the movies. Films were just another career option. I took acting up with the same schoolgirl enthusiasm I had for examinations. Acting is a job and I take it very seriously.
