Portrait of Martin Lings

Birthday profile

Martin Lings

English writer and scholar (1909-2005)

Born
January 24, 1909
Died
May 12, 2005
Zodiac sign
Aquarius
Birth year
1909

About Martin Lings

Martin Lings, also known as Abū Bakr Sirāj ad-Dīn, was an English writer, Islamic scholar, and philosopher. A student of the Swiss metaphysician Frithjof Schuon and an authority on the work of William Shakespeare, he is best known as the author of Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. Martin Lings (24 January 1909 – 12 May 2005), also known as Abū Bakr Sirāj ad-Dīn, was an English writer, Islamic scholar, and philosopher. At Oxford he discovered the writings of René Guénon, a French metaphysician and Muslim convert, and Frithjof Schuon, a German spiritual authority, metaphysician and Perennialist. After graduating from Oxford Lings went to Vytautas Magnus University, in Lithuania, where he taught Anglo-Saxon and Middle English.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Martin Lings was born

Martin Lings was born in 1909. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1909

  • Best-selling book"The Inner Shrine" – Basil King

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentHonus Wagner leads Pittsburgh Pirates to World Series victory
  • Top headlineRobert Peary claims to reach the North Pole
  • Technology milestoneBakelite (first fully synthetic plastic) invented
  • Notable inventionBakelite plastic
  • World population~1.69B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWilliam Howard Taft
  • U.S. population88.8M

1909 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Martin Lings's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19092026
Population88.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.