Ambassador Ahmed addresses the audience prior to the Journey into Europe screening.
On May 21, Ambassador Ahmed spoke at a screening of Journey into Europe held at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London to a packed hall. The event was hosted by two key partners and patrons of the Journey into Europe project, Professors Amina Yaqin of SOAS and Peter Morey of the University of East London. Attending the screening were distinguished guests including His Excellency Syed Ibne Abbas, the Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK, as well as prominent figures who appear in the film including Sir Nicholas Barrington, the former British High Commissioner to Pakistan, the author and activist Kristiane Backer, and Mohsin Akhtar, the owner of Heydon Grange golf course and farm outside of Cambridge. The film received a very enthusiastic response from the audience. Frankie Martin, who is leading the research team for the project and is the associate producer and assistant editor of the film, joined the panel discussion for the question and answer session following the screening and shared his experiences and ideas working on the project.
The occasion had added significance for Ambassador Ahmed because he received his PhD at SOAS, in 1978. Ambassador Ahmed’s PhD tutor, Adrian Mayer, was in the audience for the film. The previous evening, May 20, Ambassador Ahmed gave the Annual Lecture, “ISIS, Paris, Pakistan and the search for peace: conversations with an Islamic scholar,” also to a packed hall, which was moderated by the prominent political theorist Lord Bhikhu Parekh. Among the audience attending the event, which was also received very enthusiastically, were many SOAS alumni. Prominent guests included Sir Nicholas Barrington, Justice Khurshid Drabu, the first secretary and the defense attache at the Pakistan embassy, Jonathan Benthall, the former Director of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and many others.
Ambassador Ahmed poses next to his portrait on the SOAS “hall of fame” for distinguished alumni.
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