Early years
Abedin was born on July 28, 1976,[7] in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Syed Zainul Abedin (1928–93) and Saleha Mahmood Abedin.[4][8] At the age of two, she moved with her family to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she was raised and lived until returning to the United States for college.[4][8] Abedin traveled frequently during her childhood and teenage years and attended a British girls' school.[8]
Both of her parents were educators. Her father, born in New Delhi, British India, on April 2, 1928,[9] was an Islamic and Middle Eastern scholar of Indian descent, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and then in 1978 founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, an organization devoted to the study of Muslim communities in non-Muslim societies around the world. In 1979 he founded the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs,[10] which his wife took over after his death; his daughter Huma was listed as an associate editor in 1996–2008. Her mother, born in British India (now Pakistan after the 1947 British Partition), also received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and is currently an associate professor of sociology and dean at Dar Al-Hekma College in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.[4][11]
At age 18 Abedin entered George Washington University,[4][8] where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree.[12] As a teenager, she aspired to be a journalist like her role model Christiane Amanpour, and wanted to work in the White House press office.[13
