Abd al-Karim Qasim (Arabic: عبد الكريم قاسم `Abd al-Karīm Qāsim) (21 November 1914 – 9 February 1963), was a nationalist Iraqi Army general who seized power in a 1958 coup d'état, wherein the Iraqi monarchy was eliminated. He ruled the country as Prime Minister of Iraq until his downfall and death in 1963.
His name can be transliterated from the Arabic in a number of ways, e.g. Abdel Karim Kassem, Abdul Karim Kassem, Abdulkarim Kasem, Abdel-Kari...
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Abd al-Karim Qasim (Arabic: عبد الكريم قاسم `Abd al-Karīm Qāsim) (21 November 1914 – 9 February 1963), was a nationalist Iraqi Army general who seized power in a 1958 coup d'état, wherein the Iraqi monarchy was eliminated. He ruled the country as Prime Minister of Iraq until his downfall and death in 1963.
His name can be transliterated from the Arabic in a number of ways, e.g. Abdel Karim Kassem, Abdul Karim Kassem, Abdulkarim Kasem, Abdel-Karim Qaasim, `Abdul Karim Qasem, Qassem. During his rule, he was popularly known as al-za‘īm (الزعيم) or, "The Leader".
Abd al-Karim Qasim's father was a Sunni Muslim of Arab descent who died shortly after his son's birth during World War I as a soldier for the Ottoman Empire. Qasim's mother was a Shiite and the daughter of a Feyli Kurd farmer from Baghdad.
When Qasim was six years of age his family moved to Suwayra, a small town near the Tigris, then to Baghdad in 1926. Qasim was an excellent student; he entered secondary school on a government...
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