The death of the world's weirdest dictator, Turkmenistan's Saparmurat Niyazov, also means the end of one of the world's oddest "religions." Niyazov was a sulky, bombastic dictator and one of the most narcissistic men who ever lived. Things he personally found distasteful or irritating were banned- dogs and cats because they smelled, gold teeth because he found them unattractive. Like many other dictators, he set about on ambitious building projects while his countrymen wallowed in poverty. Like grandiose rulers of time past, he even rewrote the calendar to rename the months after himself and his family members.

Niyazov saw himself as not just a leader, but the spiritual father of his people. He christened himself Turkmenbashi, "father of Turkmen," and elevated himself to a sort of demi-God. His book of spiritual musings, Rukhnama, or "Book of the Soul," was ordered placed alongsidfe the Koran in the country's mosques- and those that did not comply with such a blasphemy usually found their mosques demolished. So enamored of his own writing was he that even a driver's license exam required knowledge of the Rukhnama, which is reportedly still a top-seller.