Modern usage
It is the term commonly used for village or neighborhood mosque leaders, who may not have high levels of religious education, in large parts of the Muslim world, particularly Iran, Turkey, Caucasus, Central Asia, West Asia, South Asia, Eastern Arabia, the Balkans and the Horn of Africa. In other regions, a different term may be used, such as imam in the Maghreb.
In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the title is given to graduates of a madrasa or Islamic school, who are then able to become a mosque leader, a teacher at a religious school, a local judge in a village or town, or to perform religious rituals. A person who is still a student at a madrasa and yet to graduate is a talib.
The Afghan Taliban was formed in 1994 by men who had graduated from, or at least attended, madrasas. They called themselves taliban, the plural of talib, or "students". Many of the leaders of the Taliban were titled Mullah, although not all had completed their madrasa education. Someone who goes on to complete postgraduate religious education receives the higher title of Mawlawi.
In India, the title is used more generally to denote a 'Muley' or Muslim Jat.
In Iran, until the early 20th century, the term mullah was used in Iranian seminaries to refer to low-level clergy who specialized in telling stories of Ashura, rather than teaching or issuing fatwas. However, in recent years, among Shia clerics, the term ruhani (spiritual) has been promoted as an alternative to mullah, which, since at least the 1980s, has developed a pejorative connotation, and is even considered a religious slur in certain contexts (especially in India and Iran).
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