born 1888, Baghdad, Iraq
died July 14, 1958, Baghdad
Iraqi soldier and longtime prime minister of Iraq.
He entered the army in 1909, when Iraq was a province of the Ottoman Empire . Captured by the British during World War I (1914–18), he joined a British-backed Arab revolt against the Ottomans. After the war he joined the Iraqi government under the Hāshimite king Faysal I . Prime minister on 14 different occasions, he was pro-British and supported the monarchy. In 1958 he supported a union with Jordan that was strongly opposed by the military. He was killed in the coup that followed.