[2][3] Al Sahlani was born in Basra, Iraq in 1976[4] to a middle class Iraqi family.

He was a member of the Communist Party, which at that time, was banned by Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime.

[7] In 2004 Al-Sahlani was appointed to the Secretary General of the Iraqi National Democratic Alliance (DNA) position.

[13] In November 2013 Al-Sahlani took time-out from the Swedish parliament due to alleged deficiencies in the reporting of an aid project in Iraq.

[15] In October 2022, Al-Sahlani cut her hair in the middle of a speech at European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, whilst intoning the popular Kurdish YPJ women's resistance slogan, "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi", which translates to 'woman, life, freedom' to affirm her support for Iranian women and the Mahsa Amini protests and to call on Europe to act.