Abdul Qadir Gilani

Born around 1077 or 1078 in Na'if, a town in Gilan, Persia, he moved to Baghdad, where he built a reputation as a Hanbali scholar and preacher with a Sufi bent. His teachings and spiritual authority drew enough followers that after his death in 1166, they coalesced into the Qadiriyya, one of the oldest Sufi orders still in practice. He was buried in Baghdad, the city that gave him his second epithet, Baghdadi, though Gilani — after his birthplace — stuck harder.