Her father, a civil engineer, was a vocal opponent of Gamal Abdel Nasser's construction of the Aswan High Dam on ecological principles.

"[13] In her 1999 memoir A Border Passage, Ahmed describes her multicultural Cairene upbringing and her adult life as an expatriate and an immigrant in Europe and the United States.

Ahmed speaks of her experience in Europe and the United States as one that was often fraught with tension and confusion as she tried to reconcile her Muslim Egyptian identity with Western values.

Faced with racism and anti-Muslim prejudice, and after deconstructing traditionalist male-centered beliefs in her own culture, she set out to dispel equally damaging myths and misconceptions held by the West about Islam and Muslim women.

"[17] Since this initial reaction, Muslim women scholars have argued that the values of the Abbasid era in Iraq are not universal to Islam — rather they were specific to a particular time, culture and people.

Islamic texts and institutions need to be separated from patriarchal culture and reappraised in terms of merit, and listening to the voice of equality and justice.

Ahmed concludes by exhorting feminists, both Muslim and Western, to undertake this task by critically engaging with, challenging and redefining the Middle East regions' diverse religious and cultural heritage.

[citation needed] Women and Gender in Islam was republished by Yale University Press in 2021 in its Veritas paperback series with a foreword by Kecia Ali.