Editing Mullah (section)

=== Modern usage ===

It is the term commonly used for village or neighborhood mosque leaders, who may not have high levels of religious education, in large parts of the [[Muslim world]], particularly [[Iran]], [[Turkey]], [[Caucasus]], [[Central Asia]], [[West Asia]], [[South Asia]],<ref name="Roy">{{cite book|last=Roy|first=Olivier|url=https://archive.org/details/failureofpolitic00royo/page/28|title=The Failure of Political Islam|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=1994|isbn=0-674-29140-9|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|pages=[https://archive.org/details/failureofpolitic00royo/page/28 28–29]|author-link=Olivier Roy (professor)}}</ref> [[Bahrain (historical region)|Eastern Arabia]], the [[Balkans#Religion|Balkans]] and the [[Horn of Africa]]. In other regions, a different term may be used, such as ''[[imam]]'' in the [[Maghreb]].<ref name="Roy" />

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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Matinuddin |first=Kamal |date=1999 |title=The Taliban Phenomenon: Afghanistan 1994–1997 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=BIyVMkjat2MC&dq=mullah+title&pg=PA15 |publisher=OUP |pages=15–16 |isbn=0195792742 |access-date=18 September 2021}}</ref> Someone who goes on to complete postgraduate religious education receives the higher title of [[Mawlawi (Islamic title)|Mawlawi]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Abdul Salam Zaeff |date=2010 |title=My Life with the Taliban |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yXf1AQAAQBAJ&dq=mawlawi+title+graduates&pg=PA302 |edition= |location= |publisher=C. Hurst |page=302 |isbn=9781849040266 |access-date=18 September 2021}}</ref>

In [[Iran]],<ref name="Algar">{{harvnb|Algar|1987}}</ref> until the early 20th century, the term ''mullah'' was used in Iranian [[hawza|seminarie]]s to refer to low-level clergy who specialized in telling stories of [[Day of Ashura|Ashura]], rather than teaching or issuing [[fatwa]]s. 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.<ref>[[Moojan Momen|Momen, Moojan]], ''An Introduction to Shi'i Islam'', Yale University Press, 1985, p. 203</ref>