Ijazah

An ijazah (Arabic: الإِجازَة ‎) is the grant of permission or authority usually represented by a certificate used primarily by Sunni Muslims to indicate that one has been authorized by a higher authority to transmit a certain subject or text of Islamic knowledge. This usually implies that the student has learned this knowledge through face-to-face interactions "at the feet" of the teacher. The ijazah was limited to the study of Islamic law (sharia) and in the transmission of knowledge (gnosis) in the Islamic spiritual tradition Sufism. Philosophy, natural sciences and Islamic theology (kalam) were excluded.

Description

In a paper titled Traditionalism in Islam: An Essay in Interpretation,Harvard professor William A. Graham explains the ijazah system as follows:

Hypothesis on origins of doctorate

The generally accepted view, as expounded by Lexikon des Mittelalters and A History of the University in Europe, is that the origin of the doctorate lies in European high medieval teaching with its roots going back to late antiquity and the early days of Christian teaching of the Bible. This view is indirectly supported by the entry on the "Madrasa" in the Encyclopedia of Islam which draws no parallels between Islamic and Christian medieval learning and does not refer to any transmission process either way.