Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: ULEMA |
ULEMANoun1. A college or corporation in Turkey composed of the hierarchy, namely, the imams, or ministers of religion, the muftis, or doctors of law, and the cadis, or administrators of justice. |
Date "ULEMA" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1888. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Ulema In Turkey, either a member of the college or the college itself. The Ulema consists of the imaums, muftis, and cadis (ministers of religion, doctors of law, and administrators of justice). "Ulema" is the plural of ulim, a wise man. "The Ulema is not an ecclesiastical body, except so far as law in Mahometan countries is based on the Koran."- Creasy: Ottoman Turks, vi. 105. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Afghanistan Taliban were mostly village ulema who rose to power in the chaos after the Soviet-Afghan War. The most famous was Mullah Omar, who went directly from ruling a small village to running the entire country of Afghanistan as a dictatorship.
As this example demonstrates, the ulema are in most Muslim nations a conservative force, and stand in particular as the bulwark of orthodox thought against ijtihad, or 'independent thought' on religious law (the sharia).
The second half of the 20th century is marked by a considerable loss of authority and influence of the Ulema in most Islamic states except Saudi Arabia and Iran. Many secular Arab governments attempted to break the influence of the Ulema after their rise to power. Religious institutions were nationalized and the system of waqf, religious dotations, which constituted the classical source of income for the ulema, was abolished. In 1961 the Egyptian Nasser regime puts the Al-Azhar university, the highest Islamic intellectual authority, under the direct control of the state. "The Azharis were even put in army uniforms and had to parade under the command of army officers" (G. Keppel, Jihad). In Turkey the traditional derwish convents and Quran schools were dissolved and replaced by state controlled preacher schools in the 1950s and 1960s. After the independence of Algeria president Ben Bella also deprived the algerian organizations of ulema of their power.
The decline of the influence of the Ulema can be seen to have left an intellectual vacuum which was filled by the Islamist movements which emerged in the 1970s.
The ulema in most nations consider themselves to represent the consensus (or ijma) of the community of Muslims (or umma), or to represent at least the scholarly or learned consensus. Many efforts to modernize Islam itself focus on the re-introduction of ijtihad, empowerment of the umma to form their own ijma, and grassroots democracy to liberalize the sharia.
See also: umma, ijma, ijtihad, sharia.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Ulema."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Clergy | Mullah, muezzin, ayatollah; ulema, imaum, imam, sheik; sufi; kahin, kassis; mufti, hadji, dervish; fakir, faquir; brahmin, guru, kaziaskier, poonghie, sanyasi; druid, bonze, santon, abdal, Lama, talapoin, caloyer. |
Judge | Archon, tribune, praetor, syndic, podesta, mollah, ulema, mufti, cadi, kadi; Rhadamanthus. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: ULEMA |
| Specialty definitions using "ULEMA": ultimatum. (references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Civil Liberties | Pakistan | Islamic law judges, with the assistance of the Ulema (Islamic scholars), under the general supervision of the Peshawar High Court, try all court cases in the Malakand Division and the Kohistan District. (references) |
Economic History | Saudi Arabia | The leading members of the royal family choose the king from among themselves with the subsequent approval of the ulema. (references) |
Political Economy | Saudi Arabia | Saudi Arabia's legal system is based on Shari'a law, which is derived from the Qur'an and the traditional sayings (Hadith) of the Prophet Muhammad, and interpreted by the Ulema a body of religious experts. (references) |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | ULTIMATUM, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions. Having received an ultimatum from Austria, the Turkish Ministry met to consider it. "O servant of the Prophet," said the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk to the Mamoosh of the Invincible Army, "how many unconquerable soldiers have we in arms?" "Upholder of the Faith," that dignitary replied after examining his memoranda, "they are in numbers as the leaves of the forest!" "And how many impenetrable battleships strike terror to the hearts of all Christian swine?" he asked the Imaum of the Ever Victorious Navy. "Uncle of the Full Moon," was the reply, "deign to know that they are as the waves of the ocean, the sands of the desert and the stars of Heaven!" For eight hours the broad brow of the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk was corrugated with evidences of deep thought: he was calculating the chances of war. Then, "Sons of angels," he said, "the die is cast! I shall suggest to the Ulema of the Imperial Ear that he advise inaction. In the name of Allah, the council is adjourned." |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "ULEMA" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 98.08% of the time. "ULEMA" is used about 52 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 98.08% | 51 | 47,619 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.92% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 52 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "ULEMA": ulema-i, Ulema-i-islam. | |
Containing "ULEMA": Jamiat-e-ulema-i-pakistan, Jamiat-e-ulema-islam. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
ulema | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "ULEMA": ulemas. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-l-m-u" | |
-1 letter: alme, alum, lame, male, maul, meal, mule. | |
-2 letters: ale, amu, eau, elm, emu, lam, lea, leu, lum, mae, mel. | |
-3 letters: ae, al, am, el, em, la, ma, me, mu, um. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-l-m-u" | |
+1 letter: almuce, almude, ampule, amulet, macule, mauled, mauler, muleta, ulemas. | |
+2 letters: albumen, almuces, almudes, alumine, alumnae, ampoule, ampules, amulets, calumet, emulate, humeral, leucoma, leukoma, lumenal, maculae, maculed, macules, malleus, maulers, medulla, medusal, miauled, morulae, moulage, muletas, mutable, numeral, plumage, plumate, serumal, wameful. | |
+3 letters: alarumed, albumens, albumose, alumines, ambulate, amplexus, ampoules, ampullae, amusable, amusedly, amygdule, blameful, bluesman, calumets, cumulate, demurral, dreamful, emulated, emulates, emulator, flambeau, flameout, formulae, fugleman, fumarole, gunmetal, hamulate, hamulose, haulmier, humanely, humerals, hummable, labellum, leucemia, leucomas, leukemia, leukomas, lukewarm, maculate, malamute, malemiut, malemute, mameluke, maturely, mausolea, mealybug, medullae, medullar, medullas, melanous, mensural, misvalue, modulate, moulages, mucilage, multiage, muscadel, muscatel, musicale, mutilate, noumenal, numerals, plumaged, plumages, plumeria, qualmier, ramulose, shameful, simulate, staumrel, summable, ultimate, umbellar, umbrella, umlauted, unblamed, velarium, wamefuls, yarmulke. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)55 4C 45 4D 41 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)..- .-.. . -- .- |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010101 01001100 01000101 01001101 01000001 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)U L E M A |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0055 004C 0045 004D 0041 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)5546394735 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Quotations: Non-fiction | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Expressions 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Derivations | 9. Anagrams 10. Orthography 11. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
