Hussain Ibrahim Saleh Al-Shahristani was born in 1942 in Iraq. He studied chemical engineering at Imperial College London, and received his master's and doctorate at the University of Toronto. In 1979, Dr Al-Shahristani was imprisoned in Abu Ghraib prison. The reason was because he opposed the repression of Shiites in Iraq. Dr Al-Shahristani remained imprisoned for 11 years because he refused to collaborate on a nuclear weapon for Saddam Hussein. In 1991, Dr Al-Shahristani managed to flee to Iran, where he was director of the organisation for victims until 1995. Later, Dr Al-Shahristani continued his support for victims as head of Iraqi Political Prisoners and as head of Iraqi Refugees Aid Council. In this way, he was involved in reforming Iraq. In 2005, he became first vice-president of the Iraqi parliament, and from 2006 to 2010, Dr Al-Shahristani served as Minister of Petroleum. In 2010, he became Minister for Energy.

• Lecturer at the University of Mosul (1973)
• Assistant professor at Baghdad University (1974)
• Head of the Radioisotope Production Department at Baghdad University (1975-1977)
• Head of the Department of Nuclear Chemistry (1977-1979)
• Adviser for the International Technical Research Centre in London (1998-2022)
• Head of the Iraqi National Academy of Sciences (2003)
• Visiting professor at the University of Surrey (2002-2004)
• Professor at the University of Baghdad (2004)
• Vice president of the Iraqi parliament (2005)
• Minister of oil (2006-2010)
• Minister for energy (2010)

He wrote the following book:

• Free of Fear