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Biography of an Iraqi creator

Tawfiq Al-Suwaidi

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Tawfiq Al-Suwaidi / Iraqi politician, minister and prime minister of Iraq during the era of Iraqi Kingdom 

 

Birth and upbringing 

 

Tawfiq Al-Suwaidi was born in Baghdad in 1892, and his origins go back to Albu-Mudalel clan; one of the Al-Dur clans,   the lineage of this clan goes back to their great-grandfather Al-Abbas, the uncle of (Prophet Muhammad). His grandfather moved from Al-Dur to Baghdad, and his family is called Al-Suwaidi in relation to his great-grandfather Abdullah Al-Suwaidi.   

 

Tawfiq Al-Suwaidi was imprisoned after the revolution of 14th  July1958 in Iraq, then he was pardoned in 1961. He left Iraq and lived in Lebanon until he died there in 1968. 

 

Al-Suwaidi family was famous for its men of knowledge, literature, fatwas and teaching, so Tawfiq, was the second son of Sheikh Yousif Effendi al-Suwaidi, one of the men of 20th    Revolution, and one of the judges of Iraq. 

When parliamentary life started in Iraq, he was appointed as a member of Senate council, and he was the first president of the Senate council in Iraq was chosen on 16th of July 1925, and was re-elected until July 16, 1929. 

 

In his youth, he participated with a number of Arab young nationalist youth to establish Al-Arabiya Al-Fatat Association, which called for Arab independence from the Ottoman Empire.

 

He held the position of “prime minister” during the royal era in Iraq, where he was prime minister in four governments in the years 1929, 1930, 1946, 1950.

 

Al-Suwaidi occupied other ministerial positions when he was not prime minister, such as the position of Minister of Education and Minister of Foreign Affairs. , when he was holding the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of the Hashemite Union between Iraq and Jordan in 1958 which lasted for a few months the revolution broke out in Iraq on 14th July   1958.