Ulema

Ulama (/ˈuːləˌmɑː/; Arabic: علماء‎ ʿUlamāʾ, singular عالِم ʿĀlim, "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ulema; feminine: alimah [singular] and uluma [plural]), is used to refer to community based Muslim scholars who are recognized as having specialist knowledge of Islamic law and theology.

Quotes

• An ‘alim who is enamoured of the world is meaner and lower in spiritual status than an ignorant person; he will be punished in the hereafter more severely. Successful indeed are the ‘ulama who have been favoured with nearness to Allah Most High and who are ever concerned about the hereafter.
  • Imam al-Ghazali as quoted in by Muhammad Zakariya Kandhlawi in his Fazail-e-Sadqaat.

• The mullahs are religiously-driven extremists, and they’re not like other nation-states. It’s very difficult to sit, sit across the table from them and, and, and have negotiations that make intellectual sense to us, but does not to them because they’re—they have a different drive. They consider us the, the great Satan. Israel’s the little Satan, and we know what their plans are for them. But they consider us the great Satan...
  • Fred Thompson, Meet the Press. MSNBC (4 November 2007).

• ...the Zionist-Crusader alliance resorted to killing and arresting the truthful Ulama and the working Da'ees (We are not praising or sanctifying them; Allah sanctify whom He pleased). They killed the Mujahid Sheikh Abdullah Azzaam, and they arrested the Mujahid Sheikh Ahmad Yaseen and the Mujahid Sheikh Omar Abdur Rahman (in America).
  • Osama bin Laden in his 1996 fatwa, "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.",

• You do not fight in the name of Allah, but you fight to further your own interests. ...You fight for power, and I know it. You always want more power.
  • Imam Khomeini to the ulema in the Assembly of Experts, Iran looks outward, October 10, 1988

• "..Paradise is only at a place where no mulla lives, Where no uproar and clamor from mulla is heard, May the world rid itself of terror of a mulla,May no one pay heed to his fatwas. In a city where a mulla dwells, No wise man is ever found.."
  • Diwan E Dara Shikoh. Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws: From Islamic Empires to the Taliban By Shemeem Burney Abbas