She was born in 1944 in Cairo to Iraqi parents,[1] living and working in the United States,[2] is a ceramicist, calligrapher, and painter.
She is considered both as a "famous Arab American female artist"[3] and as a "specialist in Islamic art" [4] Solo exhibitions have been held in Beirut, 1966, 68, and 70; Florence, 1967; Abu Dhabi, 1976; Jedda, 1981; Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1983; London, 1984 and 85; Al-Khubar, Saudi Arabia, 1990; Sackler Museum, 2001.
[5] She participated to the group exhibition Forces of change presented in 1994 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, where her work was described as "abstract expressionist".
[6] Her doctoral thesis in the history of Islamic art from Harvard University,[7] Beyond the symmetries of Islamic geometric patterns : the science of practical geometry and the process of Islamic design, made a "pioneering use of tessellation theory for the analysis of angular interlacing patterns".
[10] She is an instructor at the Ceramics Program of the Office for the Arts at Harvard University.