Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani

Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani was a jurist and preacher active in Baghdad in the twelfth century, and the figure to whom the Qadiriyya — one of the largest and oldest Sufi brotherhoods (tariqa, a "path" or organized devotional order) — traces its name. Reliable historical detail about him is thin: the surviving biographies were composed more than a century after his death, so much of what circulates is later devotional tradition (manaqib, "accounts of virtues") rather than documented fact.

He is traditionally said to have been born around 470/1077-78 in Gilan, a Caspian region of Persia, though some medieval writers placed his origin at Jil near Baghdad; modern scholars generally favor Gilan. As a young man he traveled to Baghdad, where he trained in Hanbali law (one of Sunni Islam's four legal schools) under teachers including al-Mukharrimi, studied hadith, and reportedly received Sufi instruction. By tradition he withdrew into years of ascetic seclusion before emerging, around 521/1127, as a celebrated public preacher who led a teaching college and lodge in the city.

Works on law and the spiritual path, among them al-Ghunya and the sermon-collection al-Fath al-Rabbani, are attributed to him, though some attributions are debated. He died in Baghdad in 561/1166. Scholars stress that the Qadiriyya as an organized order coalesced after his lifetime, spread largely by his descendants and by hagiographies such as Shattanufi's Bahjat al-Asrar. His standing as a supreme saint is a devotional claim, not a historical finding.