As a member of the Mandaean religious minority, and a democratic personality, Abdullah was harassed towards the end of his life and arrested after the rise of the Ba'ath party to power in 1963 (Ramadan Revolution). He was imprisoned for nearly a year but was released and later permitted to travel to the United States. There he held professorial and research posts at the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder, and the State University of New York in Albany. He died on July 9, 1969.