Ulama (Arabic: علماء‎ ʿUlamāʾ , singular عالِم ʿĀlim, "scholar"), also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of sharia law. While the ulama are well versed in legal fiqh (jurisprudence) being Islamic lawyers, some of them also go on to specialize in other fields, such as hadith or tafseer.

In a broader sense, the term ulama is used to describe the body of Muslim scholars who have completed several years of training and study of Islamic disciplines, such as a mufti, qadi, faqih, or muhaddith. Some Muslims^[which?] include under this term the village mullahs and imams, who have attained only the lowest rungs on the ladder of Islamic scholarship; other Muslims^{[clarification needed]} would say that clerics must meet higher standards to be considered ulama. This is why it is claimed^[who?] that in Western society there are for the most of the time no ulama present, with the outcome of Muslims in the West searching for qualified knowledge from Islamic countries, to attain some accepted qualification. The Internet gives some streams of ulama speaking on a video record, which is very rare.

Ravi Shankar (Bengali: রবি শংকর; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury on 7 April 1920), often referred to with the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the most known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.

Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent his youth touring Europe and India with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, and was music director of All India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956.

In 1956, he began to tour Europe and America playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison of The Beatles. Shankar engaged Western music by writing concerti for sitar and orchestra and toured the world in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1986 to 1992 he served as a nominated member of the upper chamber of the Parliament of India. Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999, and received three Grammy Awards. He continues to perform in the 2000s, often with his daughter Anoushka.