Al-Azhar Mosque opens
A Fatimid mosque becomes Sunni Islam's leading university
The Fatimids, who had founded Cairo, held the first Friday prayer in their new al-Azhar ('the Radiant') mosque in 972. From 988 it employed salaried scholars. Built to spread Shia teaching, after the Fatimids fell it became the leading university of the Sunni world and has trained theologians and jurists for more than a thousand years.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 10th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 962 Coronation of Otto I — 10 years earlier
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 966 Baptism of Poland — 6 years earlier
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — 16 years later
Asia
- 960 Founding of the Song dynasty — 12 years earlier
Americas
- c. 950–1250 Medieval Warm Period — 22 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Vladimir the Great (aged 12)
- Otto the Great (aged 60)
- Ferdowsi (aged 32)
- Hugh Capet (aged 32)
- Æthelred the Unready (aged 6)
- Leif Erikson (aged 2)
- Sviatoslav I (aged 30)
- Edgar the Peaceful (aged 29)
- Otto II (aged 17)
- Yaropolk I (aged 17)