List of Famous people born in Basra, Iraq

Jamal Ja'far Muhammad Ali Al Ibrahim, known by the kunya Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, also spelled Mohandes, was an Iraqi leader, and commander of the Popular Mobilisation Committee. At the time of his death, he was deputy chief of the Popular Mobilisation Committee.

Abu Tahsin al-Salihi; was an Iraqi veteran sniper. A volunteer in the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, he is credited with killing over 384 ISIS members during the War in Iraq (2013–2017), receiving the nicknames “The Sheikh of Snipers” and “Hawk Eye.”

Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham was a Muslim Arab mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age. Referred to as "the father of modern optics", he made significant contributions to the principles of optics and visual perception in particular. His most influential work is titled Kitāb al-Manāẓir, written during 1011–1021, which survived in a Latin edition. A polymath, he also wrote on philosophy, theology and medicine.

Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, often reverently referred to as Imām al-Ashʿarī by Sunnī Muslims, was an Arab Muslim scholar of Shāfiʿī jurisprudence, scriptural exegete, reformer (mujaddid), and scholastic theologian (mutakallim), renowned for being the eponymous founder of the Ashʿarite school of Islamic theology.

Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Duraid al-Azdī al-Baṣrī ad-Dawsī Al-Zahrani, or Ibn Duraid, a leading grammarian of Baṣrah, was described as "the most accomplished scholar, ablest philologer and first poet of the age", was from Baṣrah (Iraq) in the Abbasid era. Ibn Duraid is best known today as the lexicographer of the influential dictionary, the Jamhara fi 'l-lugha. The fame of this comprehensive dictionary of the Arabic language is second only to its predecessor, the Kitab al-'Ayn. In his biographical dictionary Ibn Khallikān gives his full name as:

Abū Bakr M. b. al-Hasan b. Duraid b. Atāhiya b. Hantam b. Hasan b. Hamāmi b. Jarw Wāsī b. Wahb b. Salama b. Hādir b. Asad b. Adi b. Amr b. Mālik b. Fahm b. Ghānim b. Daus b. Udthān b. Abd Allāh b. Zahrān b. Kaab b. al-Hārith b. Kaab b. Abd Allāh b. Mālik b. Nasr b. al-Azd b. al-Gauth b. Nabt b. Mālik b. Zaid b. Kahlān b. Saba b. Yashjub b. Yārub b. Kahtān, of the Azd tribe, native of Baṣrah.

Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Sa‘d ibn Manī‘ al-Baṣrī al-Hāshimī or simply Ibn Saʿ'd and nicknamed "Scribe of Waqidi", was a scholar and Arabian biographer. Ibn Sa'd was born in 784/785 CE and died on 16 February 845 CE. Ibn Sa'd was from Basra, but lived mostly in Baghdad, hence the nisba al-Basri and al-Baghdadi respectively. He is said to have died at the age of 62 in Baghdad and was buried in the cemetery of the Syrian gate.

al-Muḥāsibī was the founder of the Baghdad School of Islamic philosophy, and a teacher of the Sufi masters Junayd al-Baghdadi and Sirri Saqti.

Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Rifāʿī was a Sunni Muslim preacher, ascetic, mystic, jurist, and theologian, known for being the eponymous founder of the Rifaʽi tariqa of Islam. He gave courses in Hadith, Fiqh, and Tafsir everyday except for Monday and Thursday. He sat in his pulpit afternoons on Monday and Thursday and preached to intellectuals and the public. The Rifaʽi order had its greatest following until it was overtaken by the Qadiri order. The Rifaʽi order is most commonly found in the Arab Middle East but also in Turkey, the Balkans and South Asia.

Abū al-Hasan 'Alī Ibn Muḥammad Ibn Habīb al-Māwardī, known in Latin as Alboacen, was an Islamic jurist of the Shafi'i school most remembered for his works on religion, government, the caliphate, and public and constitutional law during a time of political turmoil. Appointed as the chief judge over several districts near Nishapur in Iran, and Baghdad itself, al-Mawardi also served as a diplomat for the Abbasid caliphs al-Qa'im and al-Qadir in negotiations with the Buyid emirs. He is best known for his treatise on "The Ordinances of Government." The Ordinances, Al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya w'al-Wilayat al-Diniyya, provide a detailed definition of the functions of caliphate government which, under the Buyids, appeared to be rather indefinite and ambiguous.

Abu Kalijar Marzuban was the Buyid amir of Fars (1024–1048), Kerman (1028–1048) and Iraq (1044–1048). He was the eldest son of Sultan al-Dawla.