Encyclopedia of Islam

saint

  

599  J

---

Muslims were ever to become modern, which most 

Muslims agree is a necessity. In the s

alaFism

 move-

ment, especially during the time of m

Uhammad

r

ashid

 r

ida

 (d. 1935), these two strands of thought 

largely merged, leading to the present situation in 

which saint veneration is often the province of the 

less educated and less sophisticated. The dominant 

discourse, which is largely a modernist one, has 

come to look down upon saint veneration and inter-

cession as being both un-Islamic and backwards. 

This does not mean that saints or their cults are 

disappearing. It does mean, however, that many 

Muslims, and particularly those who are intellectu-

ally and politically active, will, for the foreseeable 

future, perceive the saints to be an aspect of “folk” 

or “popular” Islam rather than the integral part of 

Islam that they were for a millennium.

See also 

ahl

 

al

-

bayt

;  

al

-b

adaWi

, a

hmad

; 

bidaa

; 

miracle

;  s

UFism

; W

ahhabism

;  z

aynab

 

bint

  a

li

 

ibn

a

bi

 t

alib

.

John Iskander