Abou Zahab was a professor at the Instituts d'études politiques in Paris, and the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales. She was also a researcher at the Centre de recherches internationales (), and worked with the Cahiers d'études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le Monde Turco-Iranien on subjects relating to contemporary Afghanistan and Pakistan. She spoke Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Pashto, and Punjabi, and in addition to scholarly works she published works detailing her travels through Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and India. These included time spent in Bangladesh during André Malraux's involvement with the liberation movement there, and she was in Beirut during the 1975 advent of the Lebanese Civil War, around which time she converted to Shia Islam.