[2][4] Waddy joined the Oxford Group as a full-time worker in 1935,[3] before it became Moral Re-Armament (MRA; now Initiatives of Change), which supported construction faith communities worldwide.
[5] Her objective was to explore the approach of Muslims to contemporary and practical issues such as family life, forgiveness, the meaning of Jihad, the Quran, war and women's rights and featured quotes from several friends of hers and high-figure officials in the Middle East.
[7] Three weeks following Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984, Waddy was invited to lecture at the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore's Shantiniketan ashram in Calcutta and went on to give a talk at the Islamic medical institute Hamdard Pakistan.
[5] Waddy was a member of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, the Committee for British-Arab University Visits and the Council for Arab-British Understanding.
[1] Waddy became trusted with academic and religious leaders in several of the Middle Eastern countries she visited and it "was with a deepened faith and a skilled discernment of the human heart.
"[3] Khan wrote of Waddy: "Her work helps to break down stereotypes, replaces many inaccurate images and gives an understanding of Muslims in all aspects of their lives.
"[7] Khan added: "She had a special quality of listening and appreciating the best in others... To Charis Waddy, the study of the Muslim world called 'for an attitude in the non-Muslim which it must be acknowledged has often been lacking: a respect for a way of life which has already lasted for 14 hundred years, which has nurtured more than one great civilization, and which is at present in a state of upheaval and expansion.