[3] Starting in the late 1980s Said increasingly focused his work on human rights, conflict resolution, and later explored the relationship between spirituality and religion in international politics.
His family was forced to flee to Damascus in 1936 when Amuda was burned to the ground and two years later was relocated by French authorities to Aleppo, Syria.
Said and his five siblings were left under the care of his paternal grandmother, and he had vivid recollections of constant bombing in Aleppo during this period as British forces attempted to dislodge the Vichy French during World War II.
[3][11] As the son of a prominent leader of the Syrian Nationalist movement, Dr. Said was forced to attend French schools in keeping with France's mission civilisatrice.
[2][6] Said went from being an Adjunct Faculty member in 1957 to a Full Professor by 1964, teaching in American University's new School of International Service for six of those seven years.
When former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin received an honorary degree from AU in 1977, Said was selected to be the keynote speaker.
[23] Nearly two decades ahead of the field's expansion toward postpositivist and other approaches, Said introduced considerations on ethics and morality, non-Western viewpoints, and a more humanistic world order.
"[25] Long before these themes became mainstream within IR, Professor Said was writing about the impacts of identity, culture, ethnicity, religion and the experiences of postcolonial actors.
[27] Professor Said rejected traditional theories that view peace and human rights as related but distinct issues, and instead highlighted their interconnection.
[28] He instead offered a deeper understanding of the contemporary Middle East and Africa, advocating for the pursuit of human rights across the region and a cooperative security that is locally curated rather than imposed from the outside.
[30] At a time when fear-based generalizations shaped the mainstream perspective of Islam, Professor Said was committed to articulating a more expansive understanding of the religion.
[31] Focused on approaches that uplift locally respected Islamic values, Said argued that "the exclusion of the people of the Middle East from active participation in political life undermines stability in the region.
"[35] As an alternative to the power-politics approach to war and global catastrophe, he believed this principle of unity can transform contemporary challenges through a response of love instead of fear.
[38] In addition to his academic career, Professor Said engaged in Track II diplomacy and served as an advisor to U.S. and foreign government officials as well as international organizations.
He traveled for an advised the U.S. State and Defense departments and engaged in conflict resolution efforts on behalf of the U.S. and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
In 1964, the State Department sent him on his first official lecture tour to five Arab and three African countries where he spoke on U.S. foreign policy and U.S. domestic politics.
[41] Being a naturalized U.S. citizen, the U.S. government viewed Said as an especially effective speaker because he represented the “successful immigrant” story, embodying the American Dream.
Said was asked regularly to participate in these public diplomacy tours and he lectured in the Middle East, Europe, and Central and South America.
He briefed the Clinton Administration's National Security Council on Islamic Fundamentalism, served on President Carter's Committee on the Islamic World,[39] was a member of the George W. Bush Administration's Future of Iraq Project,[42] and served as an advisor to President Obama's Assistant Secretary of State on the Arab Spring and on Syria.