Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikrit was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. He also served as prime minister of Iraq from 1979 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 2003. He was a leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and later the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism.

Saddam Hussein was born in al-Awja, a small village near Tikrit to Hussein Abd Al-Majid and Subha Tulfah Al-Mussallat. They both were from the Albu Nasir tribe, a tribe that had descended from Ahmed Bin Hussein 'Nasiruddin' who was a descendant of Husayn ibn Ali. The Albu Nasir tribe had settled in Tikrit after migrating from Yemen. Saddam's brother and father both died of cancer before his birth. These deaths made Saddam's mother, Subha Tulfah al-Mussallat, so depressed that she unsuccessfully attempted to abort her pregnancy and commit suicide. His mother was saved by a Jewish family. Subha "would have nothing to do with him", and Saddam would eventually be taken in by an uncle. His mother remarried, and Saddam gained three half-brothers through this marriage. His stepfather, Ibrahim al-Hassan, treated Saddam harshly after his return, and (according to a psychological profile created by the CIA) beat him regularly, sometimes to wake him up. At around the age of 10, Saddam fled the family and returned to live in Baghdad with his uncle Khairallah Talfah, who became a fatherly figure to Saddam. Talfah, the father of Saddam's future wife, was a devout Sunni Muslim and a veteran of the 1941 Anglo-Iraqi War between Iraqi nationalists and the United Kingdom, which remained a major colonial power in the region. Talfah was later appointed the mayor of Baghdad during Saddam's time in power, until his notorious corruption compelled Saddam to force him out of office.

Saddam married his first wife and cousin Sajida Talfah (or Tulfah/Tilfah) in 1963 in an arranged marriage. Sajida is the daughter of Khairallah Talfah, Saddam's uncle and mentor; the two were raised as brother and sister. Their marriage was arranged for Saddam at age five when Sajida was seven. They became engaged in Egypt during his exile, and married in Iraq after Saddam's 1963 return. The couple had five children.