Biography
Merryl Wyn Davies
A Pioneering Writer and Thinker
The Mapping Merthyr Through Women’s Histories workshop brought together staff from across the Libraries and Museum service and partner sectors to uncover, honour, and amplify the stories of women who shaped Merthyr. Informed by insights from the valley‑wide Heritage and Herstories community drop‑ins, participants each chose and reflected on a woman’s story that deserves recognition, creating a collective map of Merthyr’s past through diverse female perspectives. This project marks only the beginning — with hopes to continue these workshops and collaborate with more communities across the valley, further enriching and expanding the narrative of local women’s history.
Written by Local Historian, Author, and Member of Merthyr and District Historical Society, Christine Trevett:
Merryl Wyn Davies was a pioneering writer and thinker whose work shaped Muslim intellectual life for more than four decades. Born and raised in Merthyr Tydfil, she credited her working‑class mining‑community upbringing and Welsh Protestant heritage with instilling her commitment to social justice. Educated at Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School, she developed early interests in culture, religion and anthropology, later studying social anthropology at UCL. Her career began in local journalism and BBC radio before she moved into television in the 1970s, producing major programmes on religion and ethics such as Everyman and Heart of the Matter. Her encounters with global Muslim thinkers pre‑dated her 1981 conversion to Islam, which she described as a sudden realisation shaped by her work and wide reading.
Davies became a leading figure in Islamic anthropology, publishing the influential Knowing One Another (1988) and co‑authoring numerous books with scholar Ziauddin Sardar. Her journalism and commentary spanned world affairs, film, culture and interfaith issues.
She spent a decade in Malaysia as a television producer and later as speechwriter and press secretary to future prime minister Anwar Ibrahim. After political turmoil there, she relocated to Singapore and Indonesia before returning frequently to Wales, maintaining her family home in The Walk and her identity as “a Merthyr girl”.
In the UK she served as media officer for the Muslim Council of Britain and became founding director of the re‑launched Muslim Institute in 2010. Merryl deserves to be remembered because she championed dialogue between cultures and critical thought within and about Islam, proud of her multiple identities as a Muslim, Welsh and a woman’.