Saib Shawkat ( ar, صائب شوكت; 1898 – 13 February 1984) was an Iraqi doctor and politician who was an Arab nationalist leader in Iraq.

Medical career

He was from an upscale patriotic Baghdadian family and studied at a medical school in Istanbul 1913-1918, completing post-graduate studies in general surgery in Germany. Shawkat was the first Iraqi doctor to teach anatomy at the Iraqi Royal College of Medicine of which he became the dean later in the 1940s. He was one of the pioneers in general surgery in Iraq, serving as Director General of Baghdad Hospital in the 1930s. In 1932 he became a founding committee member of the

Iraqi Red Crescent Society The Iraqi Red Crescent Society was founded in 1932 and it has its headquarters in Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris ...

. He attended

King Ghazi Ghazi ibn Faisal ( ar, غازي ابن فيصل, Gâzî ibn-i Faysal) (21 March 1912 – 4 April 1939) was the King of Iraq from 1933 to 1939 having been briefly Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Syria in 1920. He was born in Mecca, the only son ...

after the car accident preceding his death.

Politics

Shawkat led the

Arab nationalist Arab nationalism ( ar, القومية العربية, al-Qawmīya al-ʿArabīya) is a nationalist ideology that asserts the Arabs are a nation and promotes the unity of Arab people, celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language an ...

Nadi al-Muthanna Club and advocating the expulsion of

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

from Iraq. Such claims about Dr. Shwakat's attitude toward Jews are contradicted by his personal heroism in defending Jewish patients at the Baghdad hospital where he worked. Hayim Habousha in his account of the pogrom (farhud) writes: On June 1, 1941, Dr. Saib Shawkat, Dean of the Baghdad Medical College, chief of surgery and administrator of Baghdad Central Hospital entered the surgery ward and scrubbed his hands getting ready to operate. Doctors and nurses standing idly by, had no option but to follow his example. In a few hours, all patients (mostly Jews) were attended to and moved into clean beds. When Jewish nurses reported threats of rape by Iraqi wounded officers being treated at the hospital, Dr. Shawkat sent the officers to their beds and warned on the megaphone that anyone disobeying his order would be shot by him with two guns at his belt. There was no argument--everyone obeyed.

Family

Saib Shawkat was the brother of politician Naji Shawkat, who served as Prime Minister of Iraq from 1932-33.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shawkat, Saib Antisemitism in Iraq Iraqi surgeons Iraqi Arab nationalists Arab collaborators with Nazi Germany 1898 births 1984 deaths Iraqi people of Georgian descent