Intellect PlusReligious figures
385 cards. Each one is a 40-second story with a five-minute read behind it. Page 6 of 7.
Methodism's founder was plucked from a burning rectory at age fiveIn February 1709 a five-year-old boy was stranded upstairs as his family's rectory burned, until a parishioner standing on another man's shoulders pulled him through a window. Joh…
America's fire-and-brimstone preacher wrote a childhood essay on ballooning spidersJonathan Edwards is remembered for Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The same mind entered Yale before turning 13, devoured Locke and Newton, studied light and optics, and at …
Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon at 24 and was dead by 38A Vermont farm boy who once hunted buried treasure with a seer stone went on to publish the Book of Mormon in 1830. Within fourteen years Joseph Smith had tens of thousands of fol…
Kūkai expected twenty years of study in China and mastered it in monthsIn 804 a little-known Japanese monk sailed for Tang China hoping someone could explain a baffling Sanskrit scripture. Within months of meeting the master Huiguo he received the hi…
Kapila founded a school of Indian philosophy, but which Kapila?Hindu tradition honours Kapila as the sage who founded Samkhya, one of India's oldest philosophical systems, sometime before the Buddha. Yet the name crops up across so many texts…
The theologian who refused Hitler's oath ended up on the cover of TimeIn 1935 only two professors at Bonn refused to swear loyalty to Hitler, and Karl Barth was one of them. The Swiss pastor had already drafted almost all of the Barmen Declaration a…
Khadija hired Muhammad, then proposed to him, then became Islam's first believerKhadija bint Khuwaylid ran a trading business so large that her caravan was said to match those of every other Quraysh merchant combined. She hired a young Muhammad to take goods …
Two armies were sent to fetch one monk, and China's Buddhism changedKumārajīva was so famous that a Chinese emperor dispatched an army to conquer his homeland and bring him back, and a later ruler sent another to free him from the warlords holding…
The Shia imam whose classroom trained two founders of Sunni lawJa'far al-Sadiq barely left Medina, refused every rebel who begged for his backing, and set fire to one recruiting letter. Yet around four thousand scholars reportedly sat at his …
The five points of Calvinism were written as a reply to one DutchmanJacobus Arminius trained under Calvin's own successor in Geneva, then spent his career quietly questioning the harshest reading of predestination. He died in 1609, but his ideas s…
John Calvin trained as a lawyer and was once expelled from GenevaThe man whose name became shorthand for predestination started out studying law because his father thought it paid better than the priesthood. Geneva threw him out once, then begg…
Before reforming Scotland's church, John Knox spent 19 months as a galley prisonerJohn Knox began as a Catholic priest and notary in East Lothian. He ended as the driving force of Scotland's Reformation, lecturing Mary, Queen of Scots to her face. In between ca…
A teenage vision earned Ibn Arabi an interview with AverroesAs a boy at the Seville court, Ibn Arabi preferred army-camp games to books. Then a teenage vision changed him so visibly that his father told the philosopher Averroes, who asked …- An Indian sage used dreams to argue that waking life is illusion tooA dreamer never actually travels to the places he dreams of, observed Gaudapada, and everything in the dream vanishes on waking. Push that logic further, he argued, and waking obj…
Most famous Rasputin stories rest on rumours historians cannot confirmRasputin was an illiterate Siberian peasant who never held any church office, yet he became the confidant of Russia's last tsar and tsarina. His early life is so thinly documented…
The last human Sikh Guru handed his authority to a bookGuru Gobind Singh became leader of the Sikhs as a child after his father was executed on Aurangzeb's orders. He founded the Khalsa in 1699, asked its first five members to initiat…
Guru Nanak was probably born in April, so why celebrate in November?Most traditional biographies place the birth of Sikhism's founder in the spring month of Baisakh in 1469, and as late as 1815 his birthday was marked in April. Today Sikhs celebra…
Madame Blavatsky blurred her own biography so well that historians still struggleHelena Blavatsky claimed secret masters trained her in Tibet, that she toured the world for years, and that she played duets with Clara Schumann. Biographers doubt much of it. Yet…
An illiterate firewood seller beat the star pupil in a Zen poetry contestChan tradition says Huineng, a poor woodcutter who could not read, won the robe of the Fifth Patriarch by dictating a single verse that outshone the monastery's leading monk. It i…
The pope once paid Zwingli a pension; then he broke with RomeHuldrych Zwingli once drew an annual pension from Pope Julius II and marched with Swiss troops in Italy as their chaplain. Defeat and disgust at the mercenary trade changed him. I…
About 72 travellers at Karbala in 680 permanently reshaped IslamHusayn, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, refused to swear loyalty to a caliph he considered illegitimate. Setting out for Kufa with roughly 72 companions and family, he was corner…- Too poor for paper, he wrote lessons on bones and reshaped Islamic lawAs a boy in Mecca, al-Shafi'i reportedly scratched his lessons onto shoulder-bones because his mother could not buy paper. He grew up to write al-Risala, among the earliest books …
- A Tehran nobleman nicknamed Father of the Poor founded a worldwide faithBorn into Persian aristocracy in 1817, Baha'u'llah turned down a government post, gave his wealth to charity, and backed a banned movement. Chained in an underground Tehran dungeo…
A twelfth-century chief minister told people to be the temple, not build oneBasava, a Brahmin-born poet who rose to chief minister in Karnataka, handed every devotee a small personal lingam to wear, whatever their caste or sex. He opened a public hall whe…
Billy Graham practised sermons on alligators before preaching to 210 million peopleAs a Florida Bible student, Billy Graham paddled to a river island and preached to birds, alligators and cypress stumps. Decades later his ministry counted live audiences of at le…
Did Bodhidharma invent kung fu? The idea is barely a century oldBodhidharma, the bearded foreign monk credited with bringing Chan Buddhism to China, is famous today as the father of Shaolin kung fu. That link was popularised only in the twenti…
A proud young logician from Bengal traded debate for dancing in the streetsNimai Pandit was a star teacher of logic in Nabadwip who loved beating senior scholars in argument. After a trip to Gaya around 1508, he shut his school and threw himself into ecs…- One teenage monk's nagging question led to Japanese Soto ZenIf everyone is born enlightened, why did every Buddha still need to practise? That puzzle haunted Dogen from his teens on Mount Hiei. Nobody in Japan could answer it, so in 1223 h…
Desmond Tutu wanted to be a doctor, but his parents couldn't payDesmond Tutu won a place to study medicine but his family could not afford the fees, so he trained as a teacher instead. Quitting classrooms in protest at apartheid schooling, he …
Even Fatima's birth year splits Muslim historians by a decadeFatima, the daughter of Muhammad and Khadija, is honoured by Sunni and Shia Muslims alike, and her name is still a favourite for girls. Yet the two traditions disagree about when …- He died at 45, yet his hadith collections are still everyday readingAl-Nawawi lived only from 1233 to 1277, never married, and ate a single meal each day. In that short life he produced at least fifty books, including the Forty Hadiths, and faced …
- At 69 he sailed to New York on a cargo ship and launched Hare KrishnaIn 1965 an elderly Bengali monk arrived in America with a few trunks of books and no contacts. He started chanting in a New York park, and within a year his students helped him fo…
- The founder of Islam's most followed legal school died a prisoner in BaghdadAbu Hanifa, a silk merchant from Kufa, built a school of Islamic law that still dominates from Turkey to South Asia. He prized reason and analogy in legal thinking and refused to …
- India's most revered philosopher may have been little known in his own timeAdi Shankara is hailed today as the towering teacher of Advaita Vedanta, credited with over 300 texts. Yet for centuries he was overshadowed by a rival, and no Hindu, Buddhist or …
A Baghdad baker defied caliphs over whether the Quran was createdAhmad ibn Hanbal lived modestly, reportedly on seventeen dirhams a month, yet tradition credits him with memorising over a million prophetic sayings. When the caliph al-Ma'mun mad…
Aisha passed on more than 2,000 hadiths about law, prayer and pilgrimageMuhammad's youngest wife outlived him by 44 years and became one of early Islam's great teachers. Sunni tradition credits Aisha with narrating over 2,000 hadiths, on topics from i…- Islam's star professor quit the top job and vanished for a decadeIn 1095 al-Ghazali held the most prestigious teaching post in the Muslim world, at Baghdad's Nizamiyya. Then he lost his appetite, his digestion and even his voice for lecturing. …
Aleister Crowley was a mountaineer, chess fanatic and self-proclaimed prophetBefore he became notorious as the occultist who founded Thelema, Crowley climbed in Mexico and joined a 1905 attempt on Kanchenjunga. At Cambridge he practised chess two hours a d…- Ali once lay in Muhammad's bed as a decoy for would-be assassinsWhen a plot against Muhammad was uncovered in 622, his young cousin Ali stayed behind and slept in his bed so the killers would think the prophet was still home. The escape to Med…
Spain's first Grand Inquisitor made orthodoxy statecraftDominican Tomás de Torquemada, born 14 October 1420, became the Spanish Inquisition's first Grand Inquisitor after 1478. Backed by Ferdinand and Isabella, he built a tribunal netw…
Vilnius's genius slept two hours and remade studyElijah ben Solomon Zalman, the Vilna Gaon, lived from 23 April 1720 to 9 October 1797. By twenty, rabbis sent him hardest legal questions. His glosses on Talmud and Shulchan Aruch…- Simon the fisherman became the Church's rockBorn Simon bar Jonah around the turn of the eras, Peter ranks among Jesus's Twelve and a first leader of the Jesus movement. Aramaic Cephas and Greek Petros both gesture at rock o…
Seven letters still reshape Christian thought after two millenniaPaul of Tarsus—born Saul around 5 AD, dead about 64/65—never met Jesus in life yet became Christianity's great traveling theologian. Fourteen New Testament books were traditionall…
A Roman prefect turned monk became Gregory the GreatGregory I, born about 540, served as Rome's 64th bishop from 3 September 590 until 12 March 604. Son of a senator and city prefect at thirty, he turned his family estate into a mo…
A sharecropper's son opened the Church to Vatican IIAngelo Roncalli, born 25 November 1881 to Bergamo sharecroppers, became Pope John XXIII on 28 October 1958 and died 3 June 1963. He convened the Second Vatican Council to refresh …
Leo the Great turned Attila back and defined Chalcedon's ChristLeo I, Bishop of Rome from 29 September 440 to 10 November 461, grounded papal authority in succession from Peter. In 452 he met Attila and persuaded the Hun to spare further Ital…
History's longest verified papacy defined infallibility then lost RomePius IX—Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti—led the Catholic Church from 16 June 1846 to 7 February 1878, nearly thirty-two years, the longest verified reign after Peter's traditional claim.…
An illiterate shepherd became Judaism's towering tanna at fortyAkiva ben Joseph, about 50 to 28 September 135 CE, rose from humble—or convert—roots to lead late first- and early second-century sages. Tradition says Rachel, daughter of rich Be…
A Champagne rabbi still sits beside every Talmud pageShlomo Yitzchaki—Rashi—lived about 22 February 1040 to 13 July 1105 in Troyes, France. After studying in Worms under pupils of Gershom ben Judah, he joined Troyes's court, answere…
Dragon-slayer George was likely a soldier martyred under DiocletianSaint George of Lydda, feast day 23 April, is remembered as a Cappadocian Greek in the Praetorian Guard who died around 23 April 303. Early sources conflict; Edward Gibbon even tr…- Myra's bishop left almost no writings but infinite gift legendsNicholas of Myra, traditionally 15 March 270 to 6 December 343, was a Greek Christian bishop from Patara in Anatolia. No contemporary chronicle names him; miracle stories bloomed …
John the Baptist is Christianity’s forerunner—and Mandaeism’s last prophetActive by the Jordan in the early first century, the Jewish preacher Yochanan is remembered across Christianity, Islam, the Baháʼí Faith, Druze tradition, and Mandaeism. Gospels c…
Wycliffe was called morning star of the English ReformationOxford theologian and priest John Wycliffe (c. 1328–1384) argued that the church had no right to property and that sinful men forfeited authority. Later Protestants claimed him as…
Prague’s Maharal wrote mystical Torah—and inherited a golem legendJudah Loew ben Bezalel (c. 1524–1609), the Maharal of Prague, authored Jewish philosophical and mystical works including Gur Aryeh al HaTorah on Rashi. Centuries later, folklore c…
Gospels cast Judas as traitor; one Gnostic text casts him as insiderJudas Iscariot appears in all four canonical Gospels as one of the Twelve who handed Jesus over in Gethsemane. Mark and Matthew mention payment—Matthew names thirty silver pieces—…
Córdoba’s exile became Egypt’s rabbi and Aristotle’s heirMoses ben Maimon—Maimonides or Rambam—died 12 December 1204 after a career that made him a towering medieval Torah authority. Born in Córdoba on Passover Eve of 1135 or 1138, his …- Miryam of Nazareth became Christianity’s most titled saintMary, a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth married to Joseph, is named in the synoptic Gospels as Jesus’s mother. Matthew and Luke narrate a virginal conception by the Holy Sp…
Mother Teresa won a Nobel—and fierce fights over her wardsAnjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (1910–1997), an Albanian-Indian nun better known as Mother Teresa, founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in 1950. The order reached more than 133 …
Origen wrote thousands of treatises—then theology put him on trialOrigen of Alexandria (c. 185–c. 253), nicknamed Adamantius, poured out roughly two thousand treatises across exegesis, textual criticism, and doctrine. A friend’s secretarial team…- Peasant-born Nikon remade Russian rites—and split the churchNikita Minin (1605–1681), Patriarch Nikon of Moscow from 1652 to 1666, rose from a Mordvin farming village to dictate liturgical reform. Greek and Kievan scholars convinced him Mu…