Charis Waddy, Islamic scholar and author of The Muslim Mind, has died aged 94.

The Australian-born academic, who lived in north Oxford, was the first woman to graduate in oriental languages from Oxford University.

Charis Waddy The Muslim Mind, published in 1976 following extensive travels in the Middle East, was her best-known book and gave an insight into Muslim beliefs, family life and women's rights.

Among the guests at the launch of the third edition of the book in 1991 was Benazir Bhutto -- the pair had become friends when the former prime minister of Pakistan was a student at Oxford.

A Christian who believed in finding a common understanding between different religions, Dr Waddy worked to build bridges between the faiths.

She had spent some of her childhood in Jerusalem before coming to Oxford in the 1930s.

After studying Arabic and Hebrew at Lady Margaret Hall, she graduated with a first-class degree and went on to London University for her PhD.

Her involvement with the Oxford Group, later known as Moral Re-Armament and now Initiatives of Change, led her to undertake post-war reconciliation work in Europe.

She devoted most of her summers over 50 years to helping to host conferences at the MRA centre in Switzerland. On returning to the Middle East in the 1960s, she carried out research for her first book Baalbek Caravans.

Her other major work was Women in Muslim History published in 1980. In 1990, she was decorated with the Sitara-I-Imtiaz (star of distinction) for her contribution to the understanding of Pakistan, and particularly its women, in the West.

It was in this decade she helped to host a ground-breaking occasion at Christ Church College in Oxford when Prince Hassan of Jordan was invited to become the first non-Christian to preach at the cathedral.

She was closely involved with the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies where she helped with the recent redevelopment of the centre.

Dr Waddy, who was unmarried, spent her final years living in Norham Road, where she shared a house with Christine Morrison, a founding fellow of St Anne's College.

Her home was known for receiving a constant stream of distinguished Muslim visitors. She died on August 29.