List of Iraqis


This list of Iraqis includes people who were born in Iraq and people who are of Iraqi ancestry, who are significantly notable for their life and/or work.

Archaeologists

Artists

Artists of Iraqi origin

  • Anish Kapoor, Indian sculptor. Born in Bombay to Hindu father and a Jewish mother whose family immigrated from Baghdad when she was a few months old.
  • Gerry Judah, British artist and designer. Judah's maternal and paternal grandparents came from Baghdad to settle in the already established Baghdadi Jewish community in India and Burma.

Architects

Fashion designers

Authors

  • Elaf Ali: Journalist and author known for her impactful memoir Who Said Anything About Love?, which explores growing up under honor-based norms in Sweden.
  • Nazik Al-Malaika: A revolutionary female poet who was one of the first to use free verse in Arabic literature.
  • Sinan Antoon: A professor at NYU and a leading novelist who writes deeply emotional stories about loss and memory. His most famous works include The Corpse Washer and The Book of Collateral Damage.
  • Ali Bader: A prolific novelist known for exploring the intellectual history of Baghdad and the complexities of Iraqi identity.
  • Hassan Blasim: Often called "the best living Arab writer" by Western critics. He lives in Finland and writes gritty, surreal stories about war and refugees. Key works: ''The Iraqi Christ, The Madman of Freedom Square, Allah99.
  • Inaam Kachachi: A Paris-based author whose novels often deal with the Iraqi diaspora and the loss of the diverse old Iraq. Her notable books include The American Granddaughter and Tashari.
  • Betool Khedairi: Her writing often focuses on the intersection of cultures and the lives of women in Baghdad. Gained international acclaim for her debut novel Sky Below, which captures life in Baghdad under sanctions.
  • Abbas Khider: An Iraqi-German author who fled Iraq in the 90s. He writes primarily in German about the refugee experience.
  • Dunya Mikhail: An Iraqi-American renowned poet and journalist. Her work often transforms the horrors of war into hauntingly beautiful metaphors.
  • Ahmed Saadawi: Best known for the international bestseller Frankenstein in Baghdad, which won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
  • Badr Shakir al-Sayyab: Widely considered the father of modern Arabic poetry for his role in breaking traditional poetic structures.
  • Muhsin al-Ramli: Living in Spain, he is one of the most prominent novelists writing about the Saddam era and its aftermath. Key works: The President's Gardens, Fingers of Dates.
  • Shahad Al Rawi: A younger voice whose debut novel became an international sensation. Key works: The Baghdad Clock''.
  • Saadi Youssef: One of the most prolific and influential Arab poets of the late 20th century, known for his "everyday" poetic language.
  • Haifa Zangana: A novelist, artist, and political activist known for her memoirs and novels about political resistance.

Business people and entrepreneurs

Comedians

Educators

  • Serapion the Younger, author of a notable medicinal-botany book entitled The Book of Simple Medicaments. The book is dated 12th or 13th century. He is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from Serapion the Elder, aka Yahya ibn Sarafyun.
  • Salmawaih ibn Bunan, Arab Nestorian Christian physician who translated works of Galen from Greek into Arabic.
  • Yahya ibn Sarafyun, Assyrian physician, known in Europe as Johannes Serapion.
  • John bar Penkaye, Assyrian Nestorian Christian writer of the late 7th century. He lived at the time of fifth caliph of the Umayyad dynasty Abd al-Malik. His writings provides an eyewitness account of the Arab conquests of his time but make no mention of an Arab sacred book in existence by the end of the 7th century.
  • Yahya Ibn Adi, Assyrian Christian philosopher, theologian and translator working in Arabic. was born in Tikrit, north of Iraq. He translated numerous works of Greek philosophy into Arabic, mostly from existing versions in Syriac. He was buried in the Syriac church of St Thomas in Baghdad.
  • Abu Bishr Matta ibn Yunus, Christian philosopher who played an important role in the transmission of the works of Aristotle to the Islamic world. He is famous for founding the Baghdad School of Aristotelian Philosophers.
  • Sami Saeed Al Ahmed, historian and professor at the University of Denver
  • Abdul Jerri, Abdul Jabbar Hassoon Jerri, Iraqi American physicist and mathematician, most recognized for his contributions to information theory in general, in particular to the understanding of the Gibbs phenomenon.
  • Mohammed Albaaj born in Basra, Iraq, on December 5, 2002) Philosopher researcher in the field of cosmological physics and philosophy.
  • Omar Fakhri, B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D. FRCPath is a medical scientist who is best known for his research in several areas.
  • Adil E. Shamoo, Assyrian biochemist with an interest in biomedical ethics and foreign policy. He is a professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Maryland.
  • Ali Al-Wardi. He was an Iraqi Social Scientist specialized in the field of Social history. He earned his master's degree in 1948 from The University of Texas at Austin and his Ph.D. in 1950 from the same university.
  • Hirmis Aboona, educator and writer, Assyrian historian who was known for his publications concerning the history of the Assyrians in northern Iraq.
  • Thomas L. Saaty, professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business. He is the inventor, architect, and primary theoretician of the Analytic Hierarchy Process
  • Emanuel Kamber, Assyrian physics professor at Western Michigan University and was the Secretary General of the Assyrian Universal Alliance. He was born in the small Assyrian village of Darbandikhan in Iraq.
  • Majid Khadduri, Iraqi–born founder of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Middle East Studies program. Internationally, he was recognized as a leading authority on a wide variety of Islamic subjects, modern history and the politics of the Middle East. He was the author of more than 35 books in English and Arabic and hundreds of articles.
  • Hussein Ali Mahfoudh, author in the field of Semitic languages and historical studies
  • Nouman Abid Al-Jader, Mandaean chair of mathematics at Baghdad University; co-founded Iraqi Physics and Mathematics Society; acting dean of the College of Science at the University of Baghdad; University of Michigan graduate.
  • Nadje Sadig Al-Ali, educator and writer
  • Shmuel Moreh, professor emeritus in the Department for Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University and a recipient of the Israel Prize in Middle Eastern studies in 1999.
  • Behnam Afas, Iraqi-New Zealander author and researcher. His studies are mostly in the role of the Christian scholars and missionaries in Iraq.
  • Azad Bonni, MD, PhD, Iraqi Professor in the Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School
  • Amal Al Khedairy, academic, lecturer and founder and director of the cultural centre "Al Beit Al Iraqi"
  • Alphonse Mingana, Assyrian theologian, historian, orientalist and former priest best known for collecting and preserving the Mingana Collection of ancient Middle Eastern manuscripts at Birmingham.
  • Hind Rassam Culhane, chair of the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Mercy College, New York.
  • Kanan Makiya, Iraqi academic. He is the Sylvia K. Hassenfeld Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University.
  • Nada Shabout, Professor of Art History, lecturer
  • Avi Shlaim, historian and emeritus professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford

Engineers and scientists

  • Isa Kelemechi, ; Chinese, Assyrian Nestorian Christian scientist, and official at the Yuan court of Kublai Khan's Mongol Empire in the 13th century.
  • Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī
  • Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi
  • Abdul Athem Alsabti, Mandaean supernova astrophysicist who introduced astronomy teaching into Iraq in 1970; University of Manchester graduate ; minor planet 10478 Alsabti named after him; founded Iraqi Astronomical Society; project leader for the Iraqi National Astronomical Observatory.
  • Abdul Jabbar Abdullah, Mandaean wave theory physicist, dynamical meteorologist, and President Emeritus of Baghdad University; MIT graduate ; chair of physics at Baghdad University; co-founded Iraqi Physics and Mathematics Society.
  • Ahmed ibn Yusuf, mathematician
  • Al-Abbās ibn Said al-Jawharī
  • Al-Karaji
  • Al-Kindi
  • Al-Samawal al-Maghribi
  • Ara Darzi, Baron Darzi of Denham, Ara Warkes Darzi, Baron Darzi of Denham, KBE PC,, one of the world's leading surgeons at Imperial College London, where he holds the Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery, specialising in the field of minimally invasive and robot-assisted surgery, having pioneered many new techniques and technologies.
  • Azzam Alwash, Iraqi hydraulic engineer and environmentalist. He was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2013, in particular for his efforts on restoring salt marshs in southern Iraq, which had been destroyed during the Saddam Hussein regime.
  • Berossus, Hellenistic-era Babylonian writer, priest of Bel Marduk and astronomer writing in Greek, active at the beginning of the 3rd century BC
  • Brethren of Purity
  • Dlawer Ala'Aldeen, Founding President of the Middle East Research Institute ; former Minister of Higher Education & Scientific Research in Kurdistan Regional Government ; former professor of medicine in Nottingham University, UK ; human right lobbyist
  • Fakhri A. Bazzaz, plant ecologist
  • Farouk Al-Kasim, Norwegian-Iraqi petroleum geologist. He played a major role in the exploitation of Norway's petroleum resources within the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.
  • Lihadh Al-Gazali, geneticist
  • Grigor Gurzadyan, Armenian astronomer, and pioneer of space astronomy, born October 15, 1922, in Baghdad to parents who fled in 1915 Western Armenia.
  • Hunayn ibn Ishaq, scientist and physician
  • Ibn al-Haytham
  • Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi
  • Ibn Tahir al-Baghdadi
  • Jafar Dhia Jafar, Iraqi nuclear physicist
  • Jim Al-Khalili, Iraqi-born British theoretical physicist, author and science communicator; professor of theoretical physics and chair in the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey.
  • Khidir Elias Putres, Iraqi Environmental Leader
  • Khidir Hamza, Iraqi nuclear physicist
  • Kidinnu
  • Naburimannu
  • Seleucus of Seleucia
  • Sind ibn Ali
  • Souad Naji Al-Azzawi Iraqi academic and environmentalist
  • Sudines, Babylonian sage, mentioned as one of the famous Chaldean mathematicians and astronomer-astrologers by later Roman writers like Strabo.
  • Shaoul Sassoon, Iraqi Jewish engineer, worked in the government of Saddam Hussein

Film actors and directors

Film actors and directors of Iraqi descent

Human rights activists

Journalists

  • Alaa Al-Marjani, photojournalist from Najaf, worked for Associated Press and is currently working with Reuters.
  • Miriam Nerma, Iraqi journalist who wrote about women's rights and society. She is considered by many to be the first woman to write in a mainstream journal. She also started her own Journal "The Arab Girl" in 1937.
  • Safa Khulusi, Iraqi historian, novelist, poet, journalist and broadcaster. He is known for mediating between Arabic- and English-language cultures, and for his scholarship of modern Iraqi literature.
  • Talal Al-Haj, Iraqi Journalist. He is the current New York/United Nations Bureau Chief for the Al-Arabiya news network.
  • Fadhil Al Azzawi, writer, journalist and translator
  • Zuhair Al-Jezairy, journalist
  • Atwar Bahjat, journalist and reporter murdered in Iraq
  • Rauf Hassan, journalist and writer
  • Bilal Hussein, photojournalist
  • Salam Pax, blogger, translator and journalist
  • Taher Thabet, journalist
  • Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, unembedded Iraqi journalist

Journalists of Iraqi descent

  • Lorraine Ali, reporter, editor and culture writer for many publications, including Newsweek. Ali was born to an Iraqi American father who immigrated from Baghdad to Los Angeles in the 1950s. Her mother is of French Canadian descent.
  • Leila Barclay, American journalist and storyteller
  • Nina Burleigh, American writer and journalist. Burleigh has written about her visits to Iraq, her mother's country of birth, both as a child and later in life as a journalist.
  • Dunja Hayali, German journalist and TV presenter
  • Salam Karam, Swedish journalist, has reported for the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet and in the radio program Godmorgon, världen!.
  • Farah Nosh, photojournalist
  • Michelle Nouri, journalist and writer, her publications include "La ragazza di Baghdad"
  • Daniel Pearl, American journalist, kidnapped and murdered in Karachi, Pakistan..
  • Tim Judah, reporter for The Economist and author
  • Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi, London-based journalist, analyst on Arab affairs, and co-founder and chairman of Arab Media Watch, a media watchdog organization that monitors and responds to British media coverage of the Arab world. Nashashibi was born in Kuwait to a Palestinian-Jordanian-Lebanese Muslim father and an Iraqi-Syrian Christian mother.

Kings and rulers

Other royals

Military figures

Military figures of Iraqi origin

  • J. F. R. Jacob, retired Indian Army lieutenant general. He is best known for the role he played in India's victory in the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 and the Liberation of Bangladesh. He also fought in World War II and the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965. He later served as the governor of the Indian states of Goa and Punjab. His family were Baghdadi Jews originally from Iraq who settled in Kolkata in the middle of the 18th century.
  • Sybil Sassoon, Marchioness of Cholmondeley, Chief Staff Officer to Director WRNS, WRNS HQ, Admiralty from 12 November 1939 until 1946. On 9 February 1945 she was appointed as superintendent of the Women's Royal Naval Service and the following year was made CBE. She belonged to the prominent Sassoon and Rothschild families.

Misc

  • Maria Theresa Asmar, known as Babylon's Princess in Europe, born in 1804 in Tel Keppe, Iraq, and died in France before the Franco-Prussian War, author of Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess, consisting of two volumes and 720 pages. This book was written in the early 19th century, describing her travels through Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel and the harem system used in Turkey.
  • Dan Halutz, Israeli air force general
  • Ibrahim Mohammed Khalil, Al Qaida operative in Germany
  • Manisa Tarzanı, Tarzan of Manisa, pseudonym of Ahmet Bedewi. Living for 40 years on the mount Spil above Manisa, he is considered the first Turkish environmentalist.
  • Moshe Levi, 12th Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, the first Chief of Staff of Iraqi origin.
  • Zee M Kane to Iraqi father and English mother, Editor-in-Chief of the blog The Next Web, a Technorati Top 50 blog worldwide.
  • Murad Meneshian, research chemist, journalist, translator, and researcher.
  • Moshe Barazani, Iraqi Kurdish Jew and a member of Lehi.
  • Yitzhak Mordechai, Israeli general and later Minister of Defense and Minister of Transport.
  • Muayyed Nureddin, geologist
  • Ibn Rajab, scholar
  • Taban Shoresh, Iraqi Kurd, founder of The Lotus Flower charity
  • Curtis Sliwa, American anti-crime activist, founder and CEO of the Guardian Angels, and radio talk show host and media personality.
  • Nadya Suleman, Nadya Denise Doud-Suleman, known as Octomom in the media, is an American woman who came to international attention when she gave birth to octuplets in January 2009. Suleman's father, Edward Doud Suleman, identified himself as a former Iraqi military man and said he would be returning to his native Iraq as a translator and driver in order to financially support his daughter and her fourteen children.

Models, Miss Iraq and Beauty Pageant of Iraqi Descent

Musicians

Musicians of Iraqi descent

Patriarchs

Physicians and surgeons

Politicians

Politicians of Iraqi descent

Sports personalities

Sports personalities of Iraqi descent

Television and radio personalities

Television and radio personalities of Iraqi descent

  • Alan Yentob, British television executive and presenter. He has spent his entire career at the BBC. Alan Yentob was born into an Iraqi Jewish family in London.
  • Kenza Braiga, French TV reality show star of Iraqi origin.
  • Péri Cochin, television host
  • Eli Yatzpan, Israeli television host and comedian

Writers and poets

  • Bahira Abdulatif, writer, translator and professor.
  • Qusay Abd al-Ra'uf Askar, commonly known as Qusay al-Shaykh Askar
  • Nazik Al-Malaika, Iraqi female poet and is considered by many to be one of the most influential contemporary Iraqi female poets.
  • Abd al-Wahhab Al-Bayati, Iraqi poet. He was a pioneer in his field and defied conventional form of poetry that had been common for centuries.
  • Abdul Razzak Abdul Wahid, Mandaean poet.
  • Saadi Yousef, Iraqi author, poet, journalist, publisher, and political activist.
  • Abd al-Wahhab Al-Bayati, Iraqi poet. He was a pioneer in his field and defied conventional form of poetry that had been common for centuries.
  • Ferhad Shakely, prominent Kurdish writer, poet and researcher. He is one of the founders of modern Kurdish poetry in the post-Goran period. He was born in 1951 in the province of Kirkuk in Iraq.
  • Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri, famous Iraqi poet.
  • Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, Iraqi and Arab poet, born in Jekor, a town south of Basra in Iraq. was one of the greatest poets in Arabic literature, whose experiments helped to change the course of modern Arabic poetry.
  • Lamia Abbas Amara, Mandaean poet and pioneer of modern Arabic poetry.
  • Rabia Basri, Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya or simply Rābiʿah al-Baṣrī was a female Muslim saint and Sufi mystic.
  • Enheduanna, Akkadian princess as well as High Priestess of the Moon god Nanna. Enheduanna composed 42 hymns addressed to temples across Sumer and Akkad including Eridu, Sippar and Esnunna
  • Amira Hess, Israeli poet and artist. She arrived to Israel in 1951 from Baghdad Iraq.
  • Haifa Zangana, Iraqi novelist, author, artist, and political activist, best known for writing Women on a Journey: Between Baghdad and London.
  • Daisy Al-Amir, Iraqi writer, poet and novelist. She is author of The Waiting List: An Iraqi Woman's Tales of Alienation has renowned her as one of the leading female writers of Iraq. She was born in Basra in 1935.
  • Sargon Boulus, Iraqi-Assyrian poet and short story writer
  • Walid al-Kubaisi, writer
  • Thura Al Windawi, author
  • Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi, poet and philosopher
  • Inaam Kachachi, Iraqi journalist and author
  • Al-Hariri of Basra, Iraqi poet, scholar of the Arabic language and high government official of the Seljuk Empire.
  • Hafsa Bikri, poet
  • Ya'qub Bilbul, writer
  • Naeim Giladi, Anti-Zionist, author of an autobiographical article and historical analysis titled The Jews of Iraq. The article later formed the basis for his originally self-published book Ben-Gurion's Scandals: How the Haganah and the Mossad Eliminated Jews.
  • Jamal Jumá, poet and researcher
  • Betool Khedairi, author
  • Farida Khalaf, ISIS escapee and author
  • Moshe Levy, author
  • Alia Mamdouh, author
  • Sami Michael, author
  • Dunya Mikhail, poet
  • Samir Naqqash, novelist, short-story writer, and playwright
  • Abu Nuwas, born in Ahvaz, of Arab and Persian descent, one of the greatest of classical Arabic and Persian poets.
  • David Rabeeya, author and professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies.
  • Mahmoud Saeed, novelist
  • Samuel Shimon, Iraqi author and journalist, was born into an Assyrian Iraqi family in Habbaniya in 1956. He is a co-founder of Banipal magazine. His autobiographical novel, was published in Arabic in 2005, and a limited first edition in English translation was published the same year.
  • Rena Kirdar Sindi, author and party hostess.
  • Reuven Snir, writer
  • Haifa Zangana, novelist, author and artist
  • Al-Mutanabbi famous Abbasid-era poet who was born in Kufa, he came into fame through the court of Sayf al-Dawla. His poetry is widely known and still quoted today in many Arab countries.

Writers and poets of Iraqi descent

Religious Leaders and Theological Scholars