Arab, Iraqi Sunni

Iraq's Sunni Arabs live in the western desert valleys of the Euphrates (Anbar), the middle Tigris (Salahuddin, Samarra), Diyala, the Hawija plain of Kirkuk, the Jazira of Nineveh and western and northern Baghdad. Most belong to great tribal confederations: the Dulaim of Anbar, the Jubur along the Tigris, the Ubaid of Hawija, the Azza and Karkhiya of Diyala, the Janabiyin south of Baghdad, the Al Bu Nasir of Tikrit, the Al Bu Mahal and Karabila of the Syrian border, and Shammar-linked tribes of the Jazira. Many have Bedouin ancestry and speak Bedouin-type rural dialects; townspeople speak central Mesopotamian (gilit) Arabic, while the qeltu-speaking Sunni townspeople of Mosul, Tikrit and the upper Euphrates towns are counted separately (arab-north-iraqi). Their Hanafi Islam is the heritage of Ottoman rule, under which Sunni Arabs formed Iraq's administrative and officer class.

From 1921 to 2003 Sunni Arabs dominated the army, the state and the Ba'ath party. After 2003 de-Ba'athification, the dissolution of the army and the sectarian civil war turned them into an embattled minority; al-Qaeda in Iraq and then ISIS exploited their grievances, the tribal Awakening (Sahwa) fought al-Qaeda in 2006-2008, and in 2014-2017 ISIS seized their cities, which were largely destroyed in the war to retake them. Under the quota system a Sunni Arab holds the speakership of parliament.

Tribal honour, hospitality in the madhif guest hall with bitter Arab coffee, and loyalty to sheikh and clan shape life in towns and villages. Men wear the dishdasha with the red-checked shmagh and agal; women the abaya, with the niqab common in some towns since the 2000s. Typical food includes qouzi (whole lamb over rice), tashreeb (bread soaked in stew), dolma, kubba and dates. Weddings feature dabke, the tribal hosa chant and Bedouin-style poetry. Marriage is usually within the tribe, often between cousins, and tribal law (sulh and fasl) settles feuds and blood money.

Hanafi Sunni practice centres on the mosque, Friday prayer and Ramadan; Fallujah is known as the city of mosques, and the Abu Hanifa mosque in Adhamiya is the symbolic heart of Baghdad's Sunnis. Sufi orders (Qadiriyya at the Gilani shrine in Baghdad, Rifa'iyya, Naqshbandi, Kasnazani) hold dhikr gatherings, though Salafi preaching since the 1990s and the ISIS years discredited shrine veneration in many places and ISIS destroyed many shrines. After ISIS's defeat many younger people turned away from political Islam, while others keep quiet Salafi convictions. Folk practice persists in amulets, Quranic healing (ruqya), saints' tombs and fear of the evil eye.

Resources usable by Iraqi Sunni Arabs are the Standard Arabic Bible and the Iraqi (Mesopotamian) Arabic resources: the JESUS Film in Baghdadi dialect, GRN recordings, Sabeel Media Bible stories and films, and Bible.is audio. Arabic Christian satellite channels and online ministries reach them. There is no known Sunni Arab church in Anbar or Salahuddin; most contact has come through Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Turkiye and Europe.

In 2006-2008 Anbar's tribes, led by Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, formed the Awakening (Sahwa) councils and, with US support, drove al-Qaeda in Iraq out of Ramadi and Fallujah. Excluded from the state after 2011 and angered by arrests and the dispersal of the 2012-2013 protest camps, many Sunni Arab areas fell to ISIS in 2014 with little resistance. The campaigns to retake Ramadi (2015-2016), Fallujah (2016), Bayji, Tikrit and Mosul (2017) destroyed much of these cities. Some tribes fought ISIS in tribal Hashd units, while others had members who joined it, leaving feuds and collective punishment that still divide communities.