Mariam Behnam (Persian: مریم بهنام, 25 February 1921 – 4 December 2014) was an Iranian-born Emirati writer, diplomat and women's rights activist.

After graduating from high school and beginning her career as a teacher in Pakistan, she returned to Iran and began to work on social improvement projects first in Teheran and later in Bandar Abbas.

[3] Her wealthy family was involved in the pearl trade[4] and owned homes in "Bombay, Bahrain, Dubai, Karachi and Paris".

[4] Her mother died when she was ten years old and Wahid was raised, along with her five surviving siblings, by her maternal grandmother, Monkhali (née Kingely) Abbas.

[8][9] At the age of eighteen, Behnam married her Saudi Arabian cousin, Zakaria Siddique Bundakji and moved to Bombay.

[20] In the early 1950s, she allowed her son to go and live with his father,[21] and soon thereafter, Behnam married a widower, Abdulla Pakravan, who had two children from a previous marriage, gave up her career, and moved to Bandar Abbas.

[22] Her retirement was short-lived, and in 1956, after a year in Bandar Abbas, Behnam became involved in a project to establish a high school for girls and joined the Ministry of Education.

[32] She was first placed in a department developing audio-visual educational technology, but within three years, was made director general of Arts and Culture for the Sistan and Baluchestan Province.

[4] In the 1980s, she joined the Gulf News Ladies Society[38] and worked as a promoter organizing exhibits for traditional women's handicrafts.

[40] Behnam died on 4 December 2014 in Dubai,[39] and was buried at the Al Qouz Cemetery[4] At the time of her death, she was working on a fifth book of fiction.