He holds a BA from al-Azhar University, an MA degree from the American University in Cairo and a PhD in Islamic Studies from Georgetown University. His dissertation traced the pragmatic utilization of Sunni legal pluralism in 20th-century Egypt to developments that took place in the Mamluk and Ottoman periods in court practice and juristic discourse. From 2011 to 2012, Ahmed spent a year at the Berlin:Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften as part of the research initiative "Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe".