Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, the Ben Ish Chai, was born in Baghdad in the month of Av 5595 (1835), the son of Rabbi Eliyahu ben Moshe Chaim, into a family of sages. At seven, while playing, he fell into a deep well; he vowed that if he got out he would devote his life to Torah, and he was saved. He first studied with his maternal uncle, Rabbi David Chai Ben Meir, and at fourteen entered the Beit Zilkha yeshiva, becoming the chief disciple of Rabbi Abdallah Somekh, whose niece Rachel he married in 1851. He lived from a business shared with his brothers and always refused a rabbinic salary, paying for the printing of his books himself.

When his father died on 7 Elul 5619 (1859), he gave his first public sermon at the end of the seven days of mourning and succeeded him, at twenty-four, as the spiritual leader of Baghdad's community, a role he held for fifty years. Every Shabbat he preached before thousands. His sermons, blending halacha and Kabbalah, were collected in the Ben Ish Chai, arranged by the weekly Torah portions; it became the reference halachic work of the Sephardic and Eastern communities. He also wrote responsa (Rav Pe'alim), commentaries on the aggadah and many other works.

He visited the Land of Israel once, in 1869, to pray at the graves of the tzaddikim. He passed away on 13 Elul 5669 (1909).