Wali
The friend of God: the one God has taken as His intimate. Holiness in Islam, with no exact equivalent of the Christian 'saint'.
Wali means the near one, the friend, the protector. In the Qur’an God calls Himself the wali of the believers: ‘God is the Protector of those who believe; He brings them out of darkness into the light’ (II, 257). And the verse most often cited on holiness: ‘The friends of God (awliya’ Allah): no fear upon them, and they shall not grieve’ (X, 62).
The translation ‘saint’ is convenient and misleading. The wali is not canonised by an institution: his holiness is a relation to God, recognised or unrecognised by men, sometimes hidden from himself. Tradition distinguishes walaya, nearness to God (the state of being wali), and wilaya, the function of authority that can accompany it.
In the path, every shaykh is by definition a wali, but not every wali is a murshid: possessing nearness and being charged with transmitting it are two things. That is the practical criterion for recognising an authentic path.