Following jobs with local Welsh newspapers, and a stint with BBC Radio, Davies spent a decade with BBC TV Religious programmes, working on such award-winning shows as ‘Everyman’, ‘Heart of the Matter’ and ‘Global Report’[4] and the series, Encounters with Islam.
[6] Davies pioneered a new approach to Islamic anthropology and a highly original critique of America based on Hollywood films.
In her work, Knowing One Another: Shaping an Islamic Anthropology, Davies developed a new mode of inquiry which she described, "after ibn Khaldun, as ilm ul umran":[5] a radical discourse shaped by dialogue between civilisations and cultures and based on an holistic understanding of what it means to be human.
[clarification needed][citation needed] In three books about the United States, co-written with Ziauddin Sardar, Davies developed "laws of American mythology" ("Fear is essential"; "Escape is the reason for being", "America is the idea of nation", "American democracy has the right to be imperial and express itself through empire", "cinema is the engine of empire", etc.
Having returned to her "adopted country" of Malaysia in 2018, Merryl Wyn Davies died on 1 February 2021, aged 71, in Petaling Jaya, Kuala Lumpur, of a heart attack following a period of ill health.