The long-reigning Abbasid caliph who, though politically overshadowed by the Buyids, reasserted the caliphate's role as guardian of Sunni orthodoxy.
Life
Al-Qadir (reigned 991–1031) held the caliphate for four decades under the tutelage of the Shia Buyid emirs who controlled Baghdad. Lacking temporal power, he wielded religious authority instead, issuing the Qadiri Creed affirming Sunni doctrine against Mu'tazilism and Shiism. His reign marks the caliphate's transformation into a symbolic, religiously defined institution.