Rank
The title is currently granted to top Shia mujtahid, after completing sat'h and kharij studies in the hawza. By then the mujtahid would be able to issue his own edicts from the sources of Islamic religious laws: the Qur'an, the Sunnah, ijmāʻ, and 'aql ("intellect", rather than the Sunnī principle of qiyas). Most of the time this is attested by an issued certificate from his teachers. The ayatollah can then teach in hawzas (shia temples) according to his speciality, can act as a reference for their religious questions, and act as a judge. There is an important difference from Shi'a ayatollahs and "saints" in other religions and Sunni Islam: ayatollahs are not regarded as enlightened by God Himself, but by the Word of God.
Read more about this topic: Ayatollah
Famous quotes containing the word rank:
“The rank is but the guinea stamp—
The man’s the gowd for a’ that!”
—Robert Burns (1759–1796)
“Oxford is a little aristocracy in itself, numerous and dignified enough to rank with other estates in the realm; and where fame and secular promotion are to be had for study, and in a direction which has the unanimous respect of all cultivated nations.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The failure of women to produce genius of the first rank in most of the supreme forms of human effort has been used to block the way of all women of talent and ambition for intellectual achievement.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)