As journalist and author Sarah Searight’s fascination with the Middle East began in Beirut with the Arab News Agency, often travelling to Syria, always a favourite country. Later, completing a degree in Islamic art, she became a lecturer in the subject all over the UK, as well as across Australia and Europe. She also lectured on cruises, best of all in the Black Sea. 

Her publications reflect her travels and include Steaming East; Yemen Land and People (with photographer Jane Taylor); Lapis lazuli: Travels of a Celestial Stone. She chaired the Society for Arabian Studies (now International Society for Arabian Studies) for a decade.

Her love of beautiful, tragic Syria turned her attention to that eccentric pillar squatter, Simeon Stylites, forever haunting the superb basilica built around his pillar by the Byzantine emperor Zeno, that has tragically become a victim of Syria’s bitter warfare. Yet Simeon, the Jinn, survives.