Deaf Iraqi

Locations

Identity

Deaf Iraqis are the signing Deaf community of Iraq outside the Kurdistan Region: people who use Iraqi Sign Language (Lughat al-Ishara al-Iraqiya) and take part in Deaf life, drawn from every ethnic and religious community of the country. Iraqi Sign Language is about a century old and is passed on through some 25 government deaf institutes and associations in Baghdad and the Arab governorates. It belongs to the Arab sign-language family, in a Levantine-Iraqi branch with Jordanian and other Levantine sign languages. Deaf people in the Kurdistan Region sign Kurdish Sign Language, a separate language that grew from the Kurdish deaf schools and that Baghdad signers cannot follow; they are the Deaf Kurd group. People who lose their hearing later in life and go on speaking Arabic belong to their own peoples. Iraqi law and media still speak of al-summ wal-bukm, 'the deaf and mute'.

Culture & traditions

Deaf social life gathers around the deaf institutes and associations, such as the Al-Izdihar Institute in Adhamiya (Baghdad), the Al-Amal Institute in Suwaira (Wasit), the Anwar Al-Fallujah Association, the Hope Center in Basra and the Imam Hussain Specialized Center in Karbala, together with sports clubs, deaf cafés such as Kirkuk's White Hand Café, and WhatsApp and video calls. Many deaf Iraqis marry other deaf people they meet through these schools, and families in which several members are deaf are common where cousin marriage is frequent. Deaf adults often work in crafts, tailoring and smithing.

Religious practices

Deaf Iraqis share the Shia or Sunni Islam of their families, and a minority the Christian, Yazidi, Kaka'i or Mandaean faith of theirs. Religious life is oral, and Friday sermons, Husayni majalis and Quran lessons are rarely interpreted, so many deaf people know little beyond what they copy from relatives. The Imam Hussain Shrine's center for the deaf in Karbala (2015) is compiling an Iraqi-Islamic sign dictionary, teaches sign language across the country and plans to interpret Friday sermons.

Gospel access

No Scripture, Jesus Film or other Christian media exist in Iraqi Sign Language, and no deaf church or deaf believers are known; the group is unengaged. Christian deaf from Iraq's Christian communities depend on spoken-language churches.

At a glance

Language: Iraqi Sign Language
Language family: None
Affinity bloc: Deaf
People cluster: Deaf
Primary religion: Islam (Shia c. 70%, Sunni c. 25-28%)
Bible status: Not Available
Jesus Film: Not Available
Audio recordings: Not Available
Gospel recordings: Not Available
Radio broadcasts: Not Available
Religious school: Twelver Shia (Ja'fari) and Sunni

Religious breakdown

Religion	%	Denomination	Notes
Islam	c. 70%	Shia (Twelver, Ja'fari)	Deaf from Shia Arab, Feyli Kurd, Shabak and Turkmen families; Iraq outside the Kurdistan Region is mostly Shia
Islam	c. 25-28%	Sunni (Hanafi and Shafi'i)	Deaf from Sunni Arab, Turkmen and Kurdish families in Baghdad, Anbar, Nineveh, Salahuddin, Kirkuk and Diyala
Other	c. 2-3%	Christian, Yazidi, Kaka'i, Mandaean	Deaf members of minority communities
Christianity	<0.1%	Evangelical	No known deaf evangelical believers or deaf church

Presence by country

IraqNativeVerified presence

Population: ~80,000-120,000
Location: Baghdad and the governorates of federal Iraq, outside the Kurdistan Region

Deaf Iraqis, roughly 80,000 to 120,000 people who sign, form a community that crosses the lines of Iraqi society, Shia and Sunni, Arab, Turkmen and Kurd. Their Iraqi Sign Language is about a century old and is passed on through some 25 government deaf institutes from Baghdad to Basra; deaf people in the Kurdistan Region use a separate Kurdish Sign Language. With only about a hundred interpreters in the country, hospitals, courts and Friday sermons remain largely closed to them, and the law still speaks of them as 'the deaf and mute'. That is slowly changing: the Imam Hussain Shrine in Karbala runs a center that teaches sign language across the country and is compiling a dictionary of Islamic signs.