Rosemarie Said Zahlan

Rosemarie Janet Said Zahlan was a Palestinian-American historian and writer on the Arab states of the Persian Gulf based in London. She was a sister of Edward Said. In addition to her books, she also wrote for the Financial Times, the Middle East Journal, the International Journal of Middle East Studies and the Encyclopedia of Islam.

Biography

Rosemarie Janet Said was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1937, as the eldest of four sisters. Her father, Wadie Said, was a wealthy Anglican Palestinian businessman and a US citizen, while her mother was born in Nazareth to a Christian family of Palestinian descent. She attended the women's college, Bryn Mawr, United States.
Said Zahlan then taught in Cairo. She then went to Beirut, where she lectured on cultural history and music at the American University of Beirut and the Beirut College for Women. After Beirut, she went to London to get her PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She was awarded that doctoral degree from the University of London in 1968. She was also an honorary research fellow at the University of Exeter's Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. Said Zahlan would live in London for nearly 4 decades and was "at home" there.
She married Antoine "Tony" Zahlan, a Palestinian physicist and academic from Haifa. Together they championed the Gaza Library Project for supplying books to Palestine. Rosemarie was also a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Britain.