List of Famous people who died in 2015

Wahbah Mustafa al-Zuhayli born in Dair Atiah, Syria was a Syrian professor and Islamic scholar specializing in Islamic law and legal philosophy. He was also a preacher at Badr Mosque in Dair Atiah. He was the author of scores of books on Islamic and secular law, many of which have been translated to English. He was chairman of Islamic jurisprudence in the College of Sharia at Damascus University, and a signatory to the Amman Message and A Common Word documents.

Franz Thaler was an author from South Tyrol, a peacock quill embroiderer and a survivor of the concentration camp in Dachau and the satellite camp in Hersbruck.

Yves Barsacq was a French film actor, who appeared in more than 150 films. He is the son of the French-Russian production designer Léon Barsacq and the nephew of the French theatre director André Barsacq.

Edward Nipake Natapei Tuta Fanua`araki was a Vanuatuan politician. He was elected Prime Minister of Vanuatu on two separate occasions for two separate terms, and was previously the Minister of Foreign Affairs briefly in 1991, the acting President of Vanuatu from 2 March 1999 to 24 March 1999 and Deputy Prime Minister. He was the President of the Vanua'aku Pati, a socialist, Anglophone political party.

Colonel Harry Katsuharu Fukuhara was a United States Army soldier who was inducted in the United States Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in 1988.

Manuel de los Santos Pastor, also known as El Agujetas or el El Agujeta, was a Flamenco singer. He was born in Rota, Spain.

Alfred Goodman Gilman was an American pharmacologist and biochemist. He and Martin Rodbell shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discovery of G-proteins and the role of these proteins in signal transduction in cells."

John "Ian" Steel was a Scottish racing cyclist who in 1952 won the Peace Race, a central European race between Warsaw, Berlin and Prague. He was the only Briton, and the only rider from the English-speaking world to win it, as well as the first Briton to win any major race. He also won the Tour of Britain as a semi-professional and was at one stage second in the 1952 Tour of Mexico before crashing.

Robert Leopold Spitzer was a psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in New York City. He was a major force in the development of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Maria Friderike Radner was a German contralto who performed internationally in opera and in concerts.