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Walaya (Sainthood) Print E-mail
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Written by Fethullah Gulen   
Monday, 09 January 2006

Lit­er­al­ly mean­ing a per­son, a com­mu­ni­ty, or a coun­try that is un­der the di­rec­tion and rule of an­oth­er, wal­a­ya (saint­hood) de­notes an­ni­hi­la­tion with re­spect to car­nal self­hood and ego­ism in fa­vor of aware­ness of be­ing un­der the do­min­ion of the All-Liv­ing, Self-Sub­sist­ent One and of the need to ac­quire near­ness to the Nec­es­sa­ri­ly Ex­is­tent Be­ing. Trav­el­ers on the way to God who has at­tained this lev­el, hav­ing giv­en them­selves up to the di­rec­tion of God, are favored with self-pos­ses­sion, and live in near­ness to God.

Lit­er­al­ly mean­ing a per­son, a com­mu­ni­ty, or a coun­try that is un­der the di­rec­tion and rule of an­oth­er, wal­a­ya (saint­hood) de­notes an­ni­hi­la­tion with re­spect to car­nal self­hood and ego­ism in fa­vor of aware­ness of be­ing un­der the do­min­ion of the All-Liv­ing, Self-Sub­sist­ent One and of the need to ac­quire near­ness to the Nec­es­sa­ri­ly Ex­is­tent Be­ing. Trav­el­ers on the way to God who has at­tained this lev­el, hav­ing giv­en them­selves up to the di­rec­tion of God, are favored with self-pos­ses­sion, and live in near­ness to God. The first step in saint­hood is in­di­cat­ed in the verse (2:257): God is He Who loves, guards and di­rects those who be­lieve; He has led them out of all kinds of (in­tel­lec­tu­al, spir­it­u­al, so­cial, eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal) dark­ness in­to the light, and keeps them firm there­in; and al­so in Know well that the con­fi­dants (saint­ly ser­vants) of God −there will be no rea­son for them to fear (both in this world and the next, for they shall al­ways find My help and sup­port with them), nor shall they grieve (10:62).

One who has been fa­vored with saint­hood is called a wal­i­yy (saint). Wal­i­yy is one of the Names of God Al­mighty. A saint on whom this Name is placed and who has be­come a pol­ished mir-ror in which this Name is re­flect­ed is con­sid­ered as hav­ing been fa­vored with “self-an­ni­hi­la­tion in God” and “sub­sist­ence with Him.” Nev­er­the­less, this fa­vor can nev­er make a saint in­dif­fer­ent to the mas­ter of the crea­tures, up­on him be peace and the bless­ings of God. On the con­tra­ry, what­ev­er rank a per­son has at­tained on the way to God, one of the most bless­ed and il­lu­mi­nat­ing sour­ces for the con­fi­dants of God, the Truth, is the per­son of Mu­ham­mad, up­on him be peace and bless­ings, who is the sun of Pro­pheth­ood and the pure source of truth; he is the one they should fol­low strict­ly. More­over, he is the first among those sour­ces that are the means of gui­dance at­tain­ment of saint­hood for peo­ple. In sev­er­al vers­es, the Qur’an stress­es ex­act­ly this point, bring­ing our at­ten­tion to that source of en­light­en­ment and that mine of truth. For ex­am­ple (3:31): (O Mes­sen­ger,) say (to them): “If you in­deed love God, then fol­low me, so that God may love you and for­give you your sins.”

This truth is ex­pressed in a col­or­ful lan­guage in Gul­shan al-Raz by Mah­mud Shab­stari:[1]

The Proph­et is like the sun, and the saint is like the moon
fac­ing the sun, which says: “I have a spe­cial time with God.”
A saint can on­ly find a way to so that God may love you,
which is the meet­ing room with Him,
Through If you in­deed love God, fol­low me.

As the moon re­ceives its light en­tire­ly from the sun, so a saint is en­light­ened by fol­low­ing the Proph­et, by be­com­ing like him a pol­ished mir­ror in which the Di­vine light is re­flect­ed. It can even be said that not on­ly the saints that came aft­er Proph­et Mu­ham­mad, but al­so all the pre­vi­ous Pro­phets re­ceived their light from him, who is the sun of Pro­pheth­ood, up­on him be peace and bless­ings:

He is the sun of vir­tues and the oth­ers are
the stars that dif­fuse light for peo­ple at night.
All the mir­a­cles the bless­ed Mes­sen­gers worked
were be­cause his light reached them.
(Bu­si­ri)

The word wal­i­yy (saint) is used as an agent or as a past parti­ci­ple. It de­notes, in the first case, one who re­sists sins and reg­u­lar­ly ful­fills the du­ties of wor­ship and obe­di­ence with pa­tience, while in the sec­ond case, it de­notes one who has been fa­vored with God’s help and pro­tec­tion. Both of these mean­ings are in ac­cord with the cov­e­nant made be­tween God and His ser­vants, which is men­tioned in the fol­low­ing had­ith qud­si:[2]

God Al­mighty de­clares: “Who­ev­er shows hos­til­i­ty to My saint­ly ser­vant, I will sure­ly wage war on him. My ser­vant can­not get near to Me with some­thing more lov­a­ble to Me than ful­fill­ing the things I have made in­cum­bent on him. Then, My ser­vant gets near­er and near­er to Me un­til I love him by ful­fill­ing the su­per­e­rog­a­to­ry acts of wor­ship. When I love him, I be­come his ears with which he hears, his eyes with which he sees, his hands with which he grasps, and his feet on which he walks. (His hear­ing, see­ing, grasp­ing, and walk­ing take place in ac­cord­ance with my will and com­mand­ments.) If he asks Me for some­thing, I sure­ly grant it to him, and if he seeks ref­uge from (some­thing), I sure­ly take him un­der My pro­tec­tion.[3]

The saint­ly schol­ars have al­ways dwelt up­on two im­por­tant di­men­sions of saint­hood and con­sid­er them as two parts of a single unit:

  • An in­i­ti­at­e’s scru­pu­lous ob­ser­vance of God’s com­mandments, and in re­turn,
  • God’s tak­ing him/her un­der His spe­cial care and pro­tec­tion.

Such care and pro­tec­tion man­i­fest them­selves as sin­less­ness in a Proph­et, and pro­tec­tion against sins in a saint. Sin­less­ness and pro­tec­tion from sins are dif­fer­ent from one an­oth­er, but that is not our sub­ject mat­ter here.

A saint is sure­ly a no­ble, bless­ed one, and can be fa­vored with work­ing of wond­ers.[4] How­e­ver, the work­ing of wond­ers is not a con­di­tion of saint­hood. It is a dis­put­ed mat­ter wheth­er a saint knows or should know of be­ing a saint. Aft­er all, a saint is sure­ly an ob­ject or re­cip­i­ent of some spe­cial fa­vors of God.

Ibra­him Ad­ham[5] de­fines saint­hood with its di­men­sions and the fa­vors it re­ceives as re­nun­ci­a­tion of the world (not in re­spect to earn­ing a liv­ing, but rath­er with re­spect to lov­ing it from the heart), turn­ing to God with all on­e’s be­ing, and con­tin­u­ous­ly ex­pect­ing His turn­ing to one­self.

Ac­cord­ing to Ya­hya ibn Mu‘adh,[6] saint­hood is en­dur­ing ev­ery hard­ship and dif­fi­cul­ty on the way to at­tain­ing friend­ship with God.

Saint­hood, in the words of Bay­az­id al-Bi­stami, is not to al-low any de­sire to be known by oth­ers, de­spite on­e’s deep and contin­u­ous wor­ship and obe­di­ence to God and on­e’s ex­traor­di­na­ry care in ful­fill­ing oth­er du­ties of ser­van­thood. Ac­cord­ing to Abu Sa'id al-Khar­raz, God opens the door slight­ly to one qual­i­fied for saint­hood by en­a­bling reg­u­lar men­tion of Him and rec­i­ta­tion of His Names. When the in­i­ti­ate be­gins to take pleas­ure in men­tion­ing Him or in the rec­i­ta­tion of His Names, the One Men­tioned leads him or her by the hand to the sum­mit of near­ness to Him. Then, He clothes him or her in the be­jew­eled robe of His close friend­ship ac­cord­ing to the de­gree of the per­son’s loy­al­ty and faith­ful­ness. In this po­si­tion, the in­i­ti­ate feels Him on­ly, thinks of Him on­ly, keeps His com­pa­ny on­ly, and holds back from ev­ery­body else oth­er than Him, be­cause of his or her du­ties to Him. Whom­ev­er God es­pe­cial­ly fa­vors, they trem­ble with fear lest it lead to their per­di­tion. While it is a re­quire­ment of a Pro­phet’s mis­sion that he pub­li­ciz­es his Pro­pheth­ood and the mir­a­cles as­so­ci­at­ed with it as a man­i­fes­ta­tion of this spe­cial, sa­cred fa­vor, it re­quired among the cour­te­sies of saint­hood that a saint keeps both him­self and God’s spe­cial fa­vors to­wards him con­cealed. Con­cern­ing this, Mu­hy al-Din ibn al-‘Ar­a­bi[7] writes:

It is com­pul­so­ry for God’s friends to con­ceal the wond­ers they work;
So do not rid­i­cule your­self, nor be­come dis­graced, by pub­li­ciz­ing them.
How­e­ver, the Mes­sen­gers are obliged to pub­li­cize their mir­a­cles,
For they are con­nect­ed with the com­ing of the Rev­e­la­tion.

The wond­ers we men­tion are those that can be wit­nessed by oth­ers or worked through the agen­cy of the ex­ter­nal sens­es and or­gans, such as mind-read­ing, giv­ing in­for­ma­tion about things that are hid­den or in­vis­i­ble, and cross­ing great dis­tan­ces or achieving many things in a rel­a­tive­ly short time. Far from de­sir­ing them, saints of great stat­ure have felt se­ri­ous­ly un­com­fort­a­ble even with the wond­ers that have pro­ceed­ed from them un­in­ten­tion­al­ly.

There is an­oth­er kind of won­der re­lat­ed to the re­li­gious life which is not vis­i­ble. Com­pre­hen­sion of the spir­it of re­li­gion, at­tain­ment of good mor­als, strict ob­ser­vance of both the rights of God and the rights of the crea­tures, prac­tic­ing what one has learned of re­li­gion and be­ing bless­ed with its con­se­quen­ces, cer­tain­ty in knowl­edge of God, sin­cer­i­ty and pu­ri­ty of in­ten­tion in re­li­gious deeds and serv­i­ces, reach­ing the de­gree of act­ing as if see­ing God when wor­ship­ping God in dai­ly life, and sim­i­lar at­tain­ments are wond­ers of this kind. Such Di­vine fa­vors, which the com­mon peo­ple can­not see and there­fore at­tach no val­ue to are the great­est val­ues of the things that the dis­tin­guished ser­vants of God should al­ways pur­sue. Even if we should avoid pub­li­ciz­ing such ac­tions, seek­ing them out is tan­ta­mount to seek­ing out the Truth. The heirs to the great­er saint­hood −the saint­hood of the Pro­phet’s Com­pan­ions, which is marked by me­tic­u­lous ob­ser­vance of re­li­gion and self-ded­i­ca­tion to serv­ing it− ha­ve long been count­ed among the he­roes of this at­tain­ment.

O God! Make us of those of Your ser­vants who pur­sue sin­cer­i­ty, and whom You have fa­vored with sin­cer­i­ty and pu­ri­ty of in­ten­tion, and who have achieved pi­e­ty and ab­sti­nence from all for­bid­den things big or small, and whom You have made near to You, and who love and are loved by You. Amen.

[1] Sa‘d al-Din Mahmud Shabistari (1250-1320) is one of the most celebrated authors of Persian Sufism. Because of his gift for expressing the Sufi spiritual vision with extraordinary clarity, his Gulshan-i Raz (“Secret Rose Garden”) rapidly became one of the most popular works of Persian Sufi poetry. (Trans.)

[2] A hadith qudsi is a saying of the Messenger, the meaning of which is inspired directly by God. (Trans.)

[3] Al-Bukhari, “Riqaq,” 38.

[4] Any extraordinary act or achievement with which a Prophet is favored outside the known “laws of nature” is called a miracle, while a wonder is an action performed by a saint. A saint’s wonder worked by following the Prophet can only be an imitation or copy of a Prophet’s miracle. (Trans.)

[5] Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Adham, born in Balkh of pure Arab descent. He renounced his kingdom in Balkh and wandered westwards to live a life of complete asceticism, earning his bread in Syria by honest manual toil until his death in 782. (Trans.)

[6] Abu Zakariya' Yahya ibn Mu‘adh al-Razi, a disciple of Ibn Karram, left his native town of Rayy and lived for a time in Balkh, afterwards proceeding to Nishapur where he died in 871. A certain number of poems are attributed to him. (Trans.)

[7] Muhiy al-Din ibn al-‘Arabi (1165-1240): One of the great and most famous Sufi masters. His doctrine of the Transcendental Unity of Being, which most have mistaken for monism and pantheism, made him the target of unending polemics. He wrote many books, the most famous of which are Fusus al-Hikam and Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya. (Trans.)


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