Carla Power

Carla Power is the author of If The Oceans Were Ink. She grew up in the Midwest, but her parents loved to travel and they spent years in foreign countries, including Egypt and Afghanistan. At the time she was writing this book, she was a mother of two and an established journalist. She had spent years writing about Islamic issues but felt she had always just scratched the surface of the Quran. As she began this book, she wanted to see how the Quran affected the lives of those who studied it, how it was interpreted, and how it was similar to other religions and beliefs.

Power first met Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi when they were co-workers at the Centre for Islamic Studies at Oxford. While Power had an early interest in Islam, she was not at all interested in living the life prescribed by the...