Mullah VS imam

Question

What is the difference between 'mullah' and 'imam'?

LouiseT · Accepted Answer

Wikepedia gives the following definitions.

Iman is an Islamic term usually translated as belief or faith and is often used to refer to the strength of conviction in a Muslim.

Mullah is generally used to refer to a Muslim man, educated in Islamic theology and sacred law.

AH020387 · Answer

Thanks, but I mean 'imam' not 'iman'

AH020387 · Answer

I found them on dictionary.com which is a dictionary of English

Philip · Answer

AH020387I found them on dictionary.com which is a dictionary of English

Did that not provide you with enough information to determine the difference between the two terms?

Hrsanei · Answer

Let me clarify each of them for you.

Imam is one of the great twelve men who were muslims' leaders in the past.

FYI, Islam has two branches shia and sunni. the nummber of Imam for shia is twelve and I think 5 for sunni.

Shia Imam's are

Ali, Hasan, Hosein, Sadjad, Bagher, etc

But Generally, Muslim also call their leaders Imam.

Mullah is someone who has studied or had some research in Islam religion and teaching Islamic ethics to other people.

the level of Mullah is much lower than Imam and actually is not comparable.

I hope it helps

AH020387 · Answer

Thanks

Abbos · Answer

Hi! Let me also, share with my comments on the question, as I have more or less islamic knowledge, being born as a muslim.

Imam is an arabic word which means -according to its roots -someone (or something) that stays in front. Therefore, the man who stays in mosque in front of the people, so that to head them group prayers, is called imam. In our 5-time prayers if the quantity of people who come to do namaz is more then one, one of them must move ahead and stay in front of them, and begin namaz (prayer) while the others must follow him in his motions and so on.

So, the man who was appointed in the mosque to head the prayers is imam. Here, this word sounds something like post. And there are an other meanings of imam as other members mentioned above, like: a leader. Once, the king or calif of muslim world was called also as imam. Here, imam is synonym of head of state, governor or something like that.

Also, maybe in general spiritual leaders and very big muslim scholars that are lived at the past are called imam. We say Imam al-Bukhari, Imam Ahmad and so on.

And, as to mullah, i can say that this is not an arabic word. I dont know roots of this word and which language or which word it stemmes from. May be it is persian, may be turkic, may be uzbek, dari, pushtu, urdu ... etc... But I know that, in non-arabic asian countries like iran, afganistan, turkey, middle asia etc, if someone study islamic knowledges quite enough, people calles him mullah, as sign of respect. May be mullah is similar to an arabic word sheikh. Because they call islamic scholars sheikh so-and -so, sheikh Salman etc... Though the word sheikh has also another meanings.

Mullah can be imam. Because to be imam its necessary to have some knowledge about rules of salat (namaz, prayer).

Mister Micawber · Answer

Thanks, abbos.  Thanks, hrsanei.

Anonymous · Answer

Thanks-Bill

Mullah VS imam

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