Wilāya in Medieval Khurāsānī Sufism, with Particular Reference to Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021)

Abstract This article uses the insights of modern discourse on virtue ethics to explore wilāya / walāya in key Sufi texts in Khurāsān in the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries. Scholars of Sufism agree that the “friends of God” ( awliyāʾ Allāh ) wield spiritual authority over the world, and the article probes the relationship between this general claim about spiritual authority and its manifestation in the bestowal of divine marvels ( karāmāt ). The article begins with a general discussion of virtue theory, focusing on key concepts in the thought of Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021), then examines wilāya in the thought of al-Sulamī and some of his near contemporaries. An examination of marvels ( karāmāt ) provides a final feature of wilāya that illustrates more precisely the concept of virtue and the type of virtue ethics in question, thus contributing to the increasing interdisciplinary study of wilāya .