Wali

[1][2][3] In the traditional Islamic understanding, a saint is portrayed as someone "marked by [special] divine favor ... [and] holiness", and who is specifically "chosen by God and endowed with exceptional gifts, such as the ability to work miracles".

[1] From the twelfth to the fourteenth century, "the general veneration of saints, among both people and sovereigns, reached its definitive form with the organization of Sufism ... into orders or brotherhoods".

[15] However, despite the presence of these opposing streams of thought, the classical doctrine of saint veneration continues to thrive in many parts of the Islamic world today, playing a vital role in daily expressions of piety among vast segments of Muslim populations in Muslim countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey, Senegal, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Tunisia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Morocco,[1] as well as in countries with substantial Islamic populations like India, China, Russia, and the Balkans.

But such tombs are also denoted by terms usually used for dervish convents, or a particular part of it (tekke in the Balkans, langar, 'refectory,' and ribāṭ in Central Asia), or by a quality of the saint (pīr, 'venerable, respectable,' in Azerbaijan).

[1] With the general consensus of Islamic scholars of the period accepting that the ulema were responsible for maintaining the "exoteric" part of Islamic orthodoxy, including the disciplines of law and jurisprudence, while the Sufis were responsible for articulating the religion's deepest inward truths,[1] later prominent mystics like Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) only further reinforced this idea of a saintly hierarchy, and the notion of "types" of saints became a mainstay of Sunni mystical thought, with such types including the ṣiddīqūn ("the truthful ones") and the abdāl ("the substitute-saints"), amongst others.

"[24] It is, in fact, reported that Ibn Hanbal explicitly identified his contemporary, the mystic Maruf Karkhi (d. 815-20), as one of the abdal, saying: "He is one of the substitute-saints, and his supplication is answered.

"[25] From the twelfth to the fourteenth century, "the general veneration of saints, among both people and sovereigns, reached its definitive form with the organization of Sufism—the mysticism of Islam—into orders or brotherhoods.

"[9] In general Islamic piety of the period, the saint was understood to be "a contemplative whose state of spiritual perfection ... [found] permanent expression in the teaching bequeathed to his disciples.

[1] It is for this reason that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which adheres to the Wahhabi creed, "destroyed the tombs of saints wherever ... able"[1] during its expansion in the Arabian Peninsula from the eighteenth-century onwards.

"[28] Despite the presence, however, of these opposing streams of thought, the classical doctrine of saint-veneration continues to thrive in many parts of the Islamic world today, playing a vital part in the daily piety of vast portions of Muslim countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey, Senegal, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Tunisia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Morocco,[1] as well as in countries with substantive Islamic populations like India, China, Russia, and the Balkans.

"[30] Meanwhile, al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi (d. 869), the most significant ninth-century expositor of the doctrine, posited six common attributes of true saints (not necessarily applicable to all, according to the author, but nevertheless indicative of a significant portion of them), which are: (1) when people see him, they are automatically reminded of God; (2) anyone who advances towards him in a hostile way is destroyed; (3) he possesses the gift of clairvoyance (firāsa); (4) he receives divine inspiration (ilhām), to be strictly distinguished from revelation proper (waḥy),[1][31][32] with the latter being something only the prophets receive; (5) he can work miracles (karāmāt) by the leave of God, which may differ from saint to saint, but may include marvels such as walking on water (al-mas̲h̲y ʿalā 'l-māʾ) and shortening space and time (ṭayy al-arḍ); and (6) he associates with Khidr.

[1] The phenomena in traditional Islam can be at least partly ascribed to the writings of many of the most prominent Sunni theologians and doctors of the classical and medieval periods,[1] many of whom considered the belief in saints to be "orthodox" doctrine.

[citation needed] (According to the Islamic concept of Punishment of the Grave—established by hadith—the dead are still conscious and active, with the wicked suffering in their graves as a prelude to hell and the pious at ease.)

[1] According to the author, forty major saints, whom he refers to by the various names of ṣiddīḳīn, abdāl, umanāʾ, and nuṣaḥāʾ,[1] were appointed after the death of Muhammad to perpetuate the knowledge of the divine mysteries vouchsafed to them by the prophet.

[37] In certain esoteric teachings of Islam, there is said to be a cosmic spiritual hierarchy[38][39][40] whose ranks include walis (saints, friends of God), abdals (changed ones), headed by a ghawth (helper) or qutb (pole, axis).

In his divine court, there are three hundred akhyār ("excellent ones"), forty abdāl ("substitutes"), seven abrār ("piously devoted ones"), four awtād ("pillars"), three nuqabā ("leaders") and one qutb.

[1] Thus, while Moinuddin Chishti (d. 1236), for example, was honored throughout the Sunni world in the medieval period, his cultus was especially prominent in the Indian subcontinent, as that is where he was believed to have preached, performed the majority of his miracles, and ultimately settled at the end of his life.

[1] The veneration of saints has played an essential role in the religious and social life of the Maghreb for about 1000 years;[1] in other words, since Islam first reached the lands of North Africa in the eighth century.

[1] One of the most widely venerated saints in early North African Islamic history was Abū Yaʿzā (or Yaʿazzā, d. 1177), an illiterate Sunni Maliki miracle worker whose reputation for sanctity was admired even in his own life.

A "spiritual disciple of these two preceding saints,"[1] Abū Madyan, a prominent Sunni Maliki scholar, was the first figure in Maghrebi Sufism "to exercise an influence beyond his own region.

[1] It was this last figure who became the preeminent saint in Maghrebi piety, due to his being the founder of one of the most famous Sunni Sufi orders of North Africa: the Shadhiliyya tariqa.

[1] Adhering to the Maliki maddhab in its jurisprudence, the Shadhili order produced numerous widely honored Sunni saints in the intervening years, including Fāsī Aḥmad al-Zarrūq (d. 1494),[1] who was educated in Egypt but taught in Libya and Morocco, and Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Jazūlī (d. 1465), "who returned to Morocco after a long trip to the East and then began a life as a hermit,"[1] and who achieved widespread renown for the miracles he is said to have wrought by the leave of God.

For the vast majority of Muslims in the Maghreb even today, the saints remain "very much alive at their tomb, to the point that the person's name most often serves to denote the place.

"[1] While this classical type of Sunni veneration represents the most widespread stance in the area, the modern influence of Salafism and Wahhabism have challenged the traditional practice in some quarters.

[1] Scholars have noted the tremendously "important role"[1] the veneration of saints has historically played in Islamic life all these areas, especially amongst Sunni Muslims who frequent the many thousands of tombs scattered throughout the region for blessings in performing the act of ziyāra.

[1] According to scholars, "between the Turks of the Balkans and Anatolia, and those in Central Asia, despite the distance separating them, the concept of the saint and the organisation of pilgrimages displays no fundamental differences.

"[1] The veneration of Muslim saints really spread in Turkic-inhabited lands from the 10th to the 14th centuries,[1] and played a crucial role in medieval Turkic Sunni piety not only in cosmopolitan cities but also "in rural areas and amongst nomads of the whole Turkish world.

"[1] One of the reasons proposed by scholars for the popularity of Muslim saints in pre-modern Turkey is that Islam was majorly spread by the early Sunni Sufis in Turkic-inhabited lands, rather than by purely exoteric teachers.

[51] With regard to the sheer omnipresence of this belief, the late Martin Lings wrote: "There is scarcely a region in the empire of Islam which has not a Sufi for its Patron Saint.

"[52] As the veneration accorded saints often develops purely organically in Islamic climates, the Awliya Allah are often recognized through popular acclaim rather than through official declaration.