About the Author

DR ADNAN PACHACHI was born in Baghdad in 1923 into one of Iraq’s most prominent Sunni families. The son of Muzahim Pachachi, Prime Minister of Iraq 1948–49, he was educated at Victoria College in Alexandria, the American University of Beirut, and Georgetown University, where he obtained his PhD during his early service in the Iraqi Embassy in Washington. This cosmopolitan education instilled in him an admiration for European literature, music and Enlightenment values which, combined with his lifelong espousal of Arab nationalism, has made him perhaps the most articulate advocate of secular democracy in the Arab world of his time. Now retired, Dr Pachachi spends his time at his home in Abu Dhabi.