Muriel Mirak-Weissbach is the daughter of Artemis and John Mirak, who both survived the genocide as orphans. A graduate of Wellesley College, she went to Italy on a Fulbright scholarship, and earned a graduate degree from the State University of Milan, where she then taught English literature. In 1980, she left academic life for political journalism, and focused on political, economic and cultural developments in the Arab and Islamic world, visiting many countries of the region, including Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Malaysia, Yemen and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Following the 1991 war against Iraq, she and her German husband led a humanitarian aid effort (the Committee to Save the Children in Iraq), in collaboration with leading political figures in Iraq, Jordan, Palestine and the United Nations over the subsequent ten years.