Salam Pax

Salam Pax
"Peace be with you" (Arabic)
Born	Salam al-Janabi 1973 (age 43–44) Baghdad, Iraq
Nationality	Iraqi
Other names	Salam Abdulmunem
Education	Vienna International School University of Baghdad (Architecture) City University London (Journalism)
Occupation	UNICEF
Years active	2003–2009
Notable credit(s)	Pre- and post-invasion blogs from Iraq (2003) RTS Television Journalism Award - Innovation (2004)
Title	Communications Officer
Family	Adnan al-Janabi (father)
Website	Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger

Salam Pax is the pseudonym of Salam Abdulmunem (Arabic: سلام عبد المنعم‎‎), aka Salam al-Janabi (Arabic: سلام الجنابي‎‎), under which he became the "most famous blogger in the world" during and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Along with a massive readership, his site "Where is Raed?" received notable media attention. The pseudonym consists of the word for "peace" in Arabic (salām) and in Latin (pax). His was one of the first instances of an individual's blog having a wide audience and impact.

Salam Abdulmunem (the name he uses now, based on Abd al-Munim) was born to a well-to-do secular family in Baghdad in 1973. His father Adnan Abd al-Munim al-Janabi, a Sunni, worked for OPEC, his mother was a Shi'ite, while Salam himself became skeptical of religion. He came to Vienna, Austria, with his parents when he was 5, the family returned to Baghdad five years later, and Salam went back to Austria alone at the age of 16 in order to study at the Vienna International School where he became fluent in English in addition to German and his native Arabic.

When he went through his yearly allowance from back home in a month, his family brought him to Iraq in 1995, where Salam continued his study of architecture at the University of Baghdad. He described the first two years as the most difficult period in his life: