IN MANY of the tributes paid in recent days to Nelson Mandela, it has been observed, approvingly, that he was no saint. Most know what it means, in ordinary language, to say of somebody with affection that he or she was not a saint. It suggests that along with great virtues and talents, the person had some reassuringly human failings, which only made them more real and likeable. But if Mandela was not a saint, who is a saint?
In almost all the religions of the world, the idea exists that certain individuals have attained an extraordinary state of holiness. That can either mean proximity to God or, in the case of a non-theistic religion like Buddhism, a high spiritual state. In most religions there is an internal tension between the desire of ordinary believers for flesh-and-blood heroes whom they can venerate and the fear among religious authorities that such cults are a distraction. In the world of Islam, that tension is still raging and claiming lives, as it did among the Christians of medieval Europe. For practitioners of popular Sufism in West Africa or south Asia, venerating the tombs of holy individuals is a central feature of their faith and culture; but purist Sunni Muslims regard such practices as an idolatrous deviation from worship of the one God. This sort of discord has led to civil war in Mali, bomb attacks in Pakistan and the destruction of historic monuments in Saudi Arabia. And from the earliest Christian period, followers of Jesus venerated the memories and the physical remains of fellow-believers whom they held in high esteem, either because they were martyrs for the faith or because they had led outstandingly holy lives.