Annabel obtained a BA in Persian from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in 1981, after which she came to Cambridge to read for a PhD in Islamic Studies, the subject of her thesis being a 12th century Persian Sufi commentary on the Qur’an. In 2002, she became a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, concurrently holding a Research Fellowship in Qur’anic Studies at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. She regularly assists with the teaching of classical Persian literature at the Faculty.