Aliyah Khalaf Saleh

Aliyah Khalaf Saleh (born Umm Qusay circa 1956 Salah al-Din, Kingdom of Iraq) is a humanitarian, and widely acknowledged folk heroine of Iraq.

She was born near Tikrit to a Sunni family in 1956 in what was then the Kingdom of Iraq. Married young at 13, she never had the opportunity to attend school. She lost a husband, son and nephew to ISIS terrorism. In 2014, after the Camp Speicher massacre, she rescued over 50 Iraqi (Kurds, Shia Muslims, Yezidis and Christians) cadets behind the lines, and smuggled them to safety. She gave women’s clothes to some of the young men and hid them in the women's quarters on her farm. Others dug holes in a forest. IS fighters were hunting for the recruits, so Alyah obtained university identity cards for some of them, giving them local names. She taught those who were Shia how to say their prayers like a Sunni to protect them from sectarian suspicions. Over five months, she smuggled them to safety in Kurdish-held Kirkuk, hiding them in trucks surrounded by female relatives. After her cover was blown, her entire family of 25 fled the ISIS, returning only after the group’s defeat.

The highest Shi’a religious authorities bestowed on this Sunni woman the title of “Toa’a Al-‘Asr.” Toa’a today is used to describe women who place the wellbeing of others before themselves. In July 2015, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi presented her with Iraq’s Medal of the State. She won an International Women of Courage Award in 2018. In 2019, Iraqi Culture Minister Abdul Amir al-Hamdani has unveiled a bronze statue of hers.