Shaykh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani عبد القادر الجيلاني

Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (470-561 AH / 1077-1166 CE) was a Hanbali jurist, preacher, and one of the most beloved spiritual masters in Islamic history, honored across the Muslim world as the eponymous founder of the Qadiriyya Sufi order. He was born in the Persian province of Gilan, south of the Caspian Sea, and as a young man traveled to Baghdad, then the great center of Islamic learning, where he studied Hanbali law, hadith, and the Qurʾanic sciences under leading teachers of the age. After years devoted to study, worship, and seclusion, he emerged as a public preacher and teacher whose gatherings drew enormous crowds and whose disciples carried his way to nearly every corner of the Muslim world. He came to lead a Hanbali madrasa and ribat in Baghdad, combining juristic authority with the sober, ethical spirituality for which he is remembered. His landmark works include al-Ghunya li-Talibi Tariq al-Haqq, a comprehensive guide to belief, worship, and conduct; al-Fath al-Rabbani, a collection of his discourses; Futuh al-Ghayb, rendered in English as Revelations of the Unseen; and Jala al-Khawatir, The Removal of Cares. He died in Baghdad in 561 AH, where his tomb became, and remains, one of the most visited shrines in the Islamic world. The Qadiriyya named for him grew into one of the earliest and most widespread Sufi brotherhoods, shaping devotional life from West Africa to South and Southeast Asia.