SAINT

Wali, the word roughly defined as "saint," which is derived from the Arabic root w-l-y and has a root meaning of proximity, generally is found in the construct wali Allah, that is, someone who is close or intimate with God. It is a designation that Muslims use to define a holy person, and can refer to overlapping categories of pious people, religious scholars, Sufis, and Shi?i imams. In English wali is translated variously as protégé, intimate, friend of God, or "saint." A wali who has power over others has wilaya (being a protector or intercessor) while a wali with walaya focuses on the closeness or nearness to God (being a friend of God). Both of these meanings can be harmonized with interpretations of Qur?anic usage. Except for hairsplitting grammatical discussions, popular usage conflates these meanings since one close to God has power to protect and intercede and vice versa.

The popular idea of wali, an heir of the Prophet, is a post-Qur?anic development whose first textual source, the writings of al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi (d. c. 910), dates to the second half of the ninth century. Tirmidhi proposed a "seal of God's friends" that was later claimed and subsequently popularized by Ibn al-?Arabi (d. 1240). This "seal" corresponds to the creedal notion of Muhammad as the final prophet or the "seal of the prophets," while assiduously subordinating awliya? (plural of wali) to prophets. The developing doctrine of wali accounts for non-prophetic expressions of the sacred, for example, ilham (non-prophetic divine inspiration) versus wahy (prophetic revelation) in a way that explained extraordinary phenomena without violating creedal dictates.

The contemporary theological war over legitimate religious authority, often initiated and funded by scripturalist groups such as Salafis or Wahhabis, denies that anyone can be a friend of God. Instead, they assert that all Muslims have equal access to God through the written scriptural sources of Qur?an and hadith, absolutely undercutting any possibility of intercession or of spiritual hierarchy. Presently a growing minority of Muslims shares this scripturalist perspective. They are mostly concentrated in Arabic-speaking countries and in countries like the United States, which are influenced by Salafi interpretations of Islam.

On one hand, wali is a socially constructed concept based upon a recognizable community consensus. Generally Muslims recognize a wali Allah on the basis of four overlapping sources of authority: spiritual/genealogical lineage, religious experience (spiritual traveling), acquisition of transmitted religious knowledge, and exemplary behavior in harmony with the Prophetic sunna. Hagiographic literature has established a narrative paradigm that reinforces these sources of authority in the popular imagination. On the other hand, in the Sufi environment wali is a technical term based on consensually verified phenomena allowing specialists to classify types of proximity to God.

In terms of religious practice, the concept of wali provides a basis for the development of shrine rituals at the tombs of deceased saints located throughout the Islamic world. Often at these shrines the descendants of the deceased holy person, considered to be walis, act as mediating shaykhs who "pass requests to God" instead of acting as spiritual masters teaching a person how to arrive close to God through a set of contemplative practices. Although the legitimacy of these shrine rituals is strongly denied by scripturally oriented Muslims, these shrines provide meaningful religious experiences for many pious visitors. Functionally, the multivalent concept of wali varies historically and geographically so as to include scholars, saints, spiritual mentors, counselors, healers, and intercessors, both living and deceased.

See alsoIbn ?Arabi ; Mi?raj ; Silsila ; Sunna ; Tasawwuf ; Tariqa ; Ulema .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Buehler, Arthur F. Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The IndianNaqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Shaykh. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.

Chodkiewicz, Michel. Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn?Arabi. Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic Texts Society, 1993.

Cornell, Vincent. Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority inMoroccan Sufism. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.

Radke, Bernd, and John O'Kane. The Concept of Sainthood inEarly Islamic Mysticism. Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press, 1996.

Arthur F. Buehler