In Section 19 of Kashf al-Mahjub, al-Hujwiri affirms the reality of walaya (saintship): the doctrine that God has chosen particular friends, the awliya Allah, from among creation. He grounds this in scripture and prophetic tradition. The Quran declares that the friends of God shall have no fear, nor shall they grieve (Yunus 62), that God is the protecting friend of those who believe (al-Baqara 257), and that God is the friend of the believers in the worldly life (Fussilat 31). A prophetic hadith then describes a people whom even the prophets and martyrs envy: those who love one another through the spirit of God, apart from wealth or trade, whose faces are light upon pulpits of light, who feel no fear when people fear and no grief when people grieve. Key idea: sainthood is a divinely granted nearness whose outward mark is fearlessness and freedom from sorrow.