[2] Eric Chaney has argued that the Sunni Revival led to the decline of scientific output in the Islamic world.

The Abbasid Caliph, the supreme Sunni leader, was under the control of the Buyids, who governed Baghdad, while the Sharif of Mecca was under the authority of the Fatimids.

[9] The chief architect of the political and legal Sunni revival was Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092), vizier of the Seljuk Empire.

[10] The figure most associated with the Sunni Revival in Syria is Nur ad-Din (d. 1174), who built twenty madrasas in Damascus.

In 1171, Saladin, originally a general of Nur ad-Din, abolished the Fatimid Caliphate and brought Egypt into the Sunni fold.