Imam in Istanbul.]] An imam (, ) is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question. In smaller communities, an imam could also be the community leader.
The Sunni branch of Islam, whereto approximately 90% of Muslims adhere, does not have a clergy and therefore an imam is not a cleric like that of a Catholic Christian priest. In the Shi'a branch of Islam, the concept of an imam occupies a much more central religious position.
The Sunni branch of Islam does not have imams in the same sense as the Shi'a. In every day terms, the imam for Sunni Muslims is the one who leads congregational Islamic worship and prayers, and the Friday sermon is most often given by an appointed imam.
thumb|left|154px|An Imam in Omdurman, Sudan.
The term is also used for a recognized religious scholar or authority in Islam, often for the founding scholars of the four Sunni madhhabs, or schools of jurisprudence (fiqh). It may also refer to the Muslim scholars who created the analytical sciences related to Hadith or it may refer to the heads of the Prophet Muhammad's family in their generational times. In other words, Imam Ali, referring to Ali ibn Abi Talib, is a phrase commonly used by both Shi'a and Sunni Muslims, though with different connotations.
Those who are considered imams in the context of scholarly authority by Sunni Muslims, are listed below:
Madhhab (Schools of Jurisprudence) | Aqidah (Schools of Theology) | Science of Hadith |
Imam Bukhari | ||
Imam Abu Mansur al-Maturidi | Imam Abu Dawood | |
Imam Wasil ibn Ata | ||
In the Shi'a context, imam has a meaning more central to belief, referring to leaders of the community. Twelver and Ismaili Shi'a believe that these imams are chosen by God to be perfect examples for the faithful and to lead all humanity in all aspects of life. They also believe that all the imams chosen are free from committing any sin, infallibility which is called ismah. These leaders must be followed since they are appointed by God.
{|class="wikitable" width="60%" style="background:#ffffff;" |- style="border-bottom:3px solid #CCCCFF" ! Number !! Name(Full/Kunya) !! Title(Arabic/Turkish) !! Birth–Death(CE/AH) !! Importance !! Birthplace (present day country) !! Place of death and burial |- |1 |Ali ibn Abu Talibعلي بن أبي طالب
Fatimah, also Fatimah al-Zahraa, daughter of Muhammed (615–632), is also considered infallible but not an imam. Many Shi'a believe that the last imam will one day return.
* Category:Clergy Category:Religious occupations Category:Religious leadership roles Category:Arabic words and phrases Category:Titles of national or ethnic leadership Category:Islam
ar:إمام ba:Имам bs:Imam bg:Имам ca:Imam cs:Imám cy:Imam da:Imam de:Imam et:Imaam el:Ιμάμ es:Imán (religión) eo:Imamo fa:امام fr:Imam gl:Imán (relixión) glk:اِمام ko:이맘 hr:Imam id:Imam (Islam) is:Imam it:Imam he:אימאם ka:იმამი ku:Îmam mrj:Имам lt:Imamas hu:Imám ms:Imam nl:Imam ja:イマーム no:Imam pl:Imam pt:Imame ro:Imam ru:Имам simple:Imam sk:Imám sl:Imamiti sr:Имам sh:Imam fi:Imaami sv:Imam tt:Имам te:ఇమామ్ uk:Імам ur:امام zh:伊玛目This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.
We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.).
When you submit your personally identifiable information through wn.com, you are giving your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you would prefer that we not collect any personally identifiable information from you, please do not provide us with any such information. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent, except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.
We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Such third parties may be provided with access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for any other purpose.
In addition, we may disclose any information, including personally identifiable information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal proceeding or governmental request.
We do not want you to receive unwanted e-mail from us. We try to make it easy to opt-out of any service you have asked to receive. If you sign-up to our e-mail newsletters we do not sell, exchange or give your e-mail address to a third party.
E-mail addresses are collected via the wn.com web site. Users have to physically opt-in to receive the wn.com newsletter and a verification e-mail is sent. wn.com is clearly and conspicuously named at the point of
collection.If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by e-mailing us at michaelw(at)wn.com
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.
The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.