In Sufism, karamat (, singular )[*] refers to supernatural wonders performed by Wali. In the technical vocabulary of Islamic religious sciences, the singular form karamat has a sense similar to charism, a favor or spiritual gift freely bestowed by God.[Gardet, L., “Karāma”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs.] The marvels ascribed to Muslim saints have included supernatural physical actions, predictions of the future, "interpretation of the secrets of hearts",[ and walking on water.][Aziz, M. A. (2011). Religion and Mysticism in Early Islam: Theology and Sufism in Yemen. Vereinigtes Königreich: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 46]
The concept is closely related to that of Barakah (divine blessing) which endows the individual with such abilities.[Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystische Dimensionen des Islam: Die Geschichte des Sufismus. Diederichs, 1992. p. 230 (German)] The prayers of saints may also grant them power over the fate of angels, as in mystical hagiography, a saint may pray for forgiveness of a fallen angel and restore their place in the angelic hierarchy.[Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystische Dimensionen des Islam: Die Geschichte des Sufismus. Diederichs, 1992. p. 230 (German)]
History
See also: Manaqib
Historically, a "belief in the miracles of saints ( karāmāt al-awliyāʾ, literally 'marvels of the friends of')" has been a part of Sufi Sunni Islam.[Jonathan A.C. Brown, "Faithful Dissenters," Journal of Sufi Studies 1 (2012), p. 123] This is evident from the fact that an acceptance of the miracles wrought by wali is taken for granted by many of the major authors of the Islamic Golden Age (ca. 700–1400),[Radtke, B., Lory, P., Zarcone, Th., DeWeese, D., Gaborieau, M., F.M. Denny, Françoise Aubin, J.O. Hunwick and N. Mchugh, “Walī”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs.] as well as by many prominent late-medieval scholars.[
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Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr, who lived in the second half of the twelfth century, can be seen as an example of Sufi-conversation and miracle performance of his time.[Aziz, M. A. (2011). Religion and Mysticism in Early Islam: Theology and Sufism in Yemen. Vereinigtes Königreich: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 45] In his twenties, it is said he had a vision, while he was sleeping, ordering him to pray. Thereupon he woke up and began to learn and practise all Islamic rituals and teachings, until he eventually reached the state of fanāʾ. During his spiritual journey, at the time he entered Zabid, he began to experience divine gifts and gathered a multitude of followers around him. A group of people once challenged one of his disciples, whereupon al-Khayr's student, with aid of his tachers influence, began to walk on water.[Aziz, M. A. (2011). Religion and Mysticism in Early Islam: Theology and Sufism in Yemen. Vereinigtes Königreich: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 45]
Creed
The doctrine of the karāmāt al-awliyāʾ, which became enshrined as an ijma and required belief in many of the most prominent Sunni creeds of the classical era, such as the aqida of al-Tahawi (ca. 900) and Abu Hafs Umar an-Nasafi (ca. 1000), emerged from the two basic Islamic doctrinal sources of the Quran and the hadith.[ As the Quran referred to the miracles of non-prophetic saintly people like Khidr (al-Kahf:65–82), the disciples of Jesus (5:111–115), and the Seven Sleepers (al-Kahf:7–26), amongst many others, many prominent early scholars deduced that a group of venerable people must exist who occupy a rank below the prophets and messengers but who are nevertheless capable of performing miracles.][
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The references in the corpus of hadith literature to bona fide miracle-working saints like the pre-Islamic Jurayj̲, seemingly an Arabic form of the Greek Grēgorios,[Bukkhārī. Saḥīḥ al-ʿamal fi ’l-ṣalāt, Bāb 7, Maẓālim, Bāb 35][Muslim (Cairo 1283), v, 277][Maḳdisī, al-Badʾ wa ’l-taʾrīk̲h̲, ed. Huart, Ar. text 135][Samarḳandī, Tanbīh, ed. Cairo 1309, 221] only lent further credence to this early understanding of the miracles of the saints.[ The fourteenth-century Hanbali scholar ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), despite his well-known objections to ziyara (visiting of saints' graves), nevertheless stated:
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As one contemporary scholar has expressed it, practically all of the major scholars of the classical and medieval eras believed that "the lives of saints and their miracles were incontestable."[Josef W. Meri, The Cult of Saints among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 68]
In the modern world, this doctrine of the miracles of saints has been challenged by certain movements within the branches of Salafism, Wahhabism, and Islamic modernism, as certain followers of some of these movements have come to view the very idea of Muslim saints "as being both un-Islamic and backwards ... rather than the integral part of Islam which they were for over a millennium."[Juan Eduardo Campo, Encyclopedia of Islam (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009), p. 600] Islamic modernists, in particular, have tended to dismiss traditional conceptions as "superstitious" rather than authentically Islamic.[ Despite the presence, however, of these opposing streams of thought, the classical doctrine continues to thrive in many parts of the Islamic world today, playing a vital role in the daily piety of vast portions of Muslim countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey, Senegal, South Africa, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Tunisia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Morocco,][ as well as in countries with substantive Islamic populations like India, China, Russia, and the Balkans.][
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In the Malay Peninsula and surrounding cultural regions, keramat means any special tomb of any religious person venerated, including Buddhists and Taoists.
See also
Further reading
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Reynold A. Nicholson, Chapter 5 "Saints and Miracles" of The Mystics of Islam. 2002. pp. 88–104
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Trimingham, J. Spencer. The Sufi Orders in Islam. Oxford University Press. 1971. pp. 26–28
