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Mullah () is an honorific title for Islam clergy and mosque Imam. The term is widely used in Iran and Afghanistan and is also used for a person who has higher education in Islamic theology and Sharia.
The title has also been used in some Mizrahi Jews and Sephardic Jews communities in reference to the community's leadership, especially its religious leadership.See for example: "Rabbinic Succession in Bukhara 1790–1930"
In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the title is given to graduates of a madrasa or Islamic school, who are then able to become a mosque leader, a teacher at a religious school, a local judge in a village or town, or to perform religious rituals. A person who is still a student at a madrasa and yet to graduate is a talib. The Afghan Taliban was formed in 1994 by men who had graduated from, or at least attended, madrasas. They called themselves taliban, the plural of talib, or "students". Many of the leaders of the Taliban were titled Mullah, although not all had completed their madrasa education. Someone who goes on to complete postgraduate religious education receives the higher title of Mawlawi.
In Iran, until the early 20th century, the term mullah was used in Iranian hawza to refer to low-level clergy who specialized in telling stories of Ashura, rather than teaching or issuing . However, in recent years, among Shia clerics, the term ruhani (spiritual) has been promoted as an alternative to mullah and akhoond, free of pejorative connotations.Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam, Yale University Press, 1985, p. 203
Some mullahs will specialise in certain fields after completing the above foundational studies. Common specialties are:
Such figures often have memorized the Quran and historically would memorise all the books they studied. However in the modern era they instead memorise the founding books of each field (sometimes in the form of poetry to aid memorisation).
Uneducated villagers may frequently classify a literate Muslim with a less than complete Islamic training as their "mullah" or religious cleric. Mullahs with varying levels of training lead prayers in mosques, deliver religious sermons, and perform religious ceremonies such as birth rites and funeral services. They also often teach in a type of Islamic school known as a madrasah. Three kinds of knowledge are applied most frequently in interpreting Islamic texts (i.e. the Quran, hadiths, etc.) for matters of Sharia, i.e., Islamic law.
Mullahs have frequently been involved in politics, but only recently have they served in positions of power, since Shia Islamism seized power in Iran in 1979.
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