Al-Ghazali
c. 1058 – 1111 · 53 years · Baghdad · Middle East
One of Islam's most influential thinkers, who reconciled Sufism with orthodoxy and critiqued Aristotelian philosophy.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 11th century
Portrait: Kahlil Gibran · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Henry IV — emperor humbled at Canossa in his struggle with the pope, 8 years older
- William the Conqueror — Duke of Normandy, King of England, 30 years older
- Hildegard of Bingen — abbess, mystic and composer, 40 years younger
- Philip I — son of Anne of Kiev, excommunicated for bigamy, 6 years older
- Henry I Beauclerc — law-giving king who created the Exchequer and the Charter of Liberties, 10 years younger
- William II Rufus — the Conqueror's son, killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest, 2 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Vladimir II Monomakh — Grand Prince of Kiev, 5 years older
- Yuri Dolgoruky — prince of Rostov-Suzdal, founder of Moscow, 41 years younger
- Sviatopolk II — prince of Kiev, participant in the Congress of Liubech, 8 years older
- Nestor the Chronicler — monk and chronicler, 2 years older
- Vsevolod I — prince of Kiev, father of Vladimir Monomakh, 28 years older
- Mstislav the Great — last ruler of a united Kievan Rus, 18 years younger
Middle East
- Omar Khayyam — poet, mathematician, astronomer, 10 years older
- Anna Komnene — Byzantine princess and historian, 25 years younger
Asia
- Shen Kuo — polymath, 27 years older
- Li Qingzhao — Song dynasty poet, 26 years younger
The world in their lifetime
- 1066 Battle of Hastings — aged 8, Europe
- 1066 Halley's Comet over England — aged 8, Europe
- c. 1070 The Almoravids found Marrakesh — aged 12, Africa
- 1077 Walk to Canossa — aged 19, Europe
- c. 1088 University of Bologna — aged 30, Europe
- 1099 Crusaders capture Jerusalem — aged 41, Middle East