Designation of awliya

[Hmmm]

This is something that has puzzled me for some time. Clearly there are those who are awliya of various degrees from the texts. However, how can we state that anyone not specified in hadith/Qu'ran by name is awliya? Is this not arrogance? Even those who we perceive to be the greatest of scholars and most respected could well be in the hellfire for riya or similar, could they not?

[Yasin786]

Yes, and those people who might have been bad can be in heaven, that is why it is not our job to judge and we leave it to Allah (S.W.T). But we expect the best from Allah (S.W.T) because he is the most Merciful Alhamdullilah, we expect Allah's mercy to be on those who gave there lives for this Ummah, because we believe in his mercy.

[Abu 'Abdillah al-Maliki]

Generally, we might safely assume that a wali is whoever the majority of Muslim 'ulama have agreed on calling a wali. Of course, we would ultimately leave the knowledge of that to Allah.

[tilmeedh]

:salam:

For one thing, every mu'min is a 'wali', as stated by the Tahawiyyah (#65).
And yes, the agreement of the ummah is also an indication.