A Shia Muslim and neurologist by training, al-Rubaie was born in Dhi Qar Governorate in southern Iraq and left Iraq in 1979 to study in Britain. There he became a member of the British Royal College of Physicians and then a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians who practiced internal medicine and neurology and also went into publishing. In London, he became a spokesman for the Islamic Dawa Party which was the main political opposition party to President Saddam Hussein.