The formation process of the walayah and the ideal human type of the İslam within the early periods of sufism

In this thesis, the emergence of the concept of "wali" (saint) in terms of providing important clues about the formation process of Sufism is discussed throughout the process until al-Tirmidhi, who is shown as the first theorist of the idea of "walaya" (sainthood) in Sufism. The study begins with investigation of the conceptual framework in which the meanings of the concepts of wali and walaya in the Arabic language, the Qur'an and hadiths. Then, the process of gaining sufistic meanings of the wali and walayah from the first ascetics and worshipers is examined in the axis of problems such as the issue of zuhd, faith-action debates, grading among believers, the issue of caliphate and the debates on prophecy and sainthood. The research is focused on the human conceptions of the third century sufis such as al-Harith al-Muhasibi, al-Tustarî, al-Kharraz, Junayd al-Baghdadi and Abu'l-Husayn al-Nuri who lived in the Baghdad-Basra region, which is the center of the prophecy-sainthood discussions, in the context of grounding the spiritual gradation among believers and ends with the influence of their views on the formation of the type of wali and the idea of walaya, which we can show as the ideal human type of Sufism. In this context, the most important conclusion reached in the study is that the idea of walaya in Sufism, known in the literature with Tirmidhi, was discussed before Tirmidhi in relation to the problems mentioned.