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Religious Roles & Titles

Imam

Islam Roles

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Origin 622 to 632 CE

The word carries two quite different meanings and conflating them produces most of the confusion about Islamic religious authority.

In ordinary Sunni usage an imam is the person who leads the prayer. Any adult male Muslim who knows the prayer and recites competently may do it, and the qualification stated in the hadith is knowledge of the Qur'an rather than any office. When two men pray together one leads. A mosque employs a salaried imam who leads the five daily prayers, delivers the Friday sermon and answers questions, and that employment is a job, not an ordination. There is no sacrament for an imam to administer and no rite that requires one: a marriage contract needs the parties, the guardian and witnesses, and a funeral prayer needs a congregation. An imam who is dismissed by the mosque committee is simply a Muslim again, because there was never anything else to remove. Title in Sunni scholarship is also honorific, applied to the founders of the schools of law, Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Malik, Imam al-Shafii, Imam Ahmad.

In Shia Islam the Imam is something else entirely. He is the divinely designated successor to the Prophet, from the family of Ali and Fatima, sinless, and the authoritative interpreter of revelation. Twelver Shia hold that there were twelve, the last of whom entered occultation in 874 and will return; Ismailis follow a different line and the Nizari branch has a living Imam. Under this doctrine the Imamate is not an office anybody appoints to and not a role a mosque hires for, and the everyday Shia prayer leader is not called by the title without qualification.

To describe an imam as a Muslim priest is wrong in both senses, in the first because there is no priesthood to belong to, in the second because the claim being made is far larger than priesthood.

Facts
Organisation
Ordination
Recognised by the community rather than conferred 1Tradition: Sunni
Ordination
Office passes by descent 2Tradition: Shia (Twelver)
Reach of Its Authority
One congregation, house or temple 1
The congregation whose prayer he leads
Origins
Origin Period
622 to 632 CE 2
Origin Period
The Shia doctrinal sense of the imamate develops from the later seventh century 2
Attributions
Tradition
Islam 1
Status
Status Today
Living tradition, practised today 2
Learn More
One Word, Two Claims

Read a news report about an imam and you are almost certainly reading about a mosque employee. Read a Shia theological text about the Imam and you are reading about something no employer could appoint.

In Sunni usage the word means the person leading the prayer. It is functional and it is temporary: whoever leads is the imam for that prayer. The hadith on precedence say the one who leads should be the best reciter of the Qur'an, which is a qualification anybody can acquire and nobody can confer. A mosque hires a full-time imam to lead prayers, preach on Friday and answer questions, and that is a contract of employment. The mosque committee can end it. Nothing sacramental is removed when they do, because nothing was added when they hired him.

In Twelver Shia usage the Imam is one of twelve divinely designated successors to the Prophet, from the line of Ali and Fatima, held to be free from sin and error and to be the authoritative interpreter of revelation. The twelfth entered occultation in 874 and is awaited. This is not a job. It is a claim about the structure of religious authority in the world, and the whole edifice of Shia jurisprudence, including the position of the marja, who acts in the Imam's absence, is built on it. Ismailis follow a different line, and the Nizari Imamate is held by a living person.

The offices share a word and nothing else. Describing either as the Muslim equivalent of a priest gets both of them wrong: the first because there is no priesthood to be equivalent to, the second because the claim being made is very much larger than priesthood ever was.

State Employees in Some Countries, Independent Elsewhere

Formal training for Sunni imams runs through institutions such as Al-Azhar University in Cairo, founded in the tenth century and still one of the most influential centres of Sunni religious education, though a great many working imams, especially outside major cities, have trained more informally under a local scholar rather than through a prestigious university, since no single body certifies the office across the Sunni world.

State involvement in appointing and paying imams varies enormously by country. Turkey's Diyanet, the state Presidency of Religious Affairs, employs imams directly and issues the weekly sermon they deliver, a degree of central control with few parallels elsewhere; Saudi Arabia and several Gulf states likewise appoint and fund imams through state religious ministries; while in much of Western Europe and North America imams are hired and paid directly by individual mosque communities with no government role at all, a difference that has become politically significant as some Western governments have proposed licensing or training requirements for imported or foreign-trained imams.

Whether a woman may lead mixed-gender prayer as imam remains a minority and contested practice; a widely reported 2005 prayer in New York led by the scholar Amina Wadud drew support from some progressive Muslim voices and rejection from the great majority of mainstream Sunni authorities, and the practice has not become general anywhere in the Sunni world since.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Islam, Religions
Source An Introduction to Islamic LawWael B. Hallaq
Ismailism, Denominations

Ismailism holds a living Imam in continuous hereditary succession, currently the Aga Khan for the Nizari line; Ismailis and Twelver Shia disagree over which line of Imams became legitimate after the death of Ja'far al-Sadiq in 765.

Source The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines, 2nd editionFarhad Daftary
Shia (Twelver), Denominations

In Twelver Shia Islam Imam names the divinely appointed, infallible leader descended from the Prophet's family through Ali and Fatima, per the doctrine of the Imamate; a categorically different office from the Sunni prayer leader of the same title.

Source An Introduction to Shi'i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ismMoojan Momen
Sunni, Denominations

In Sunni Islam an imam is the person who leads congregational prayer, an appointed function rather than a claim of divinely guided succession from the Prophet.

Source Prayer in Islamic Thought and PracticeMarion Holmes Katz

Conducted

Nikah, Rituals
Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)
Salat (Daily Prayer), Rituals
Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)
Salat al-Istisqa, Rituals
Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)
Salat al-Janazah, Rituals
Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)
Shahada (Act of Conversion), Rituals
Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)
Talqin, Rituals
Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)

Element Of

Hanafi School, Schools of Religious Law
Source The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual HistoryAhmed El Shamsy
Hanbali School, Schools of Religious Law
Source The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual HistoryAhmed El Shamsy
Maliki School, Schools of Religious Law
Source The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual HistoryAhmed El Shamsy
Shafii School, Schools of Religious Law
Source The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual HistoryAhmed El Shamsy
Sunni, Denominations

In Sunni usage the imam leads the prayer. Any competent adult male may do it, the position carries no ordination and no doctrinal authority, and a mosque imam holds it as employment.

Source The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual HistoryAhmed El Shamsy

Held Differently

Ismailism, Denominations

The Ismaili Imam is living, present and hereditary. The line did not go into occultation, and the Aga Khan holds the office today, which is the point on which the Ismailis parted from the Twelvers.

Source The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines, 2nd editionFarhad Daftary
Jafari School, Schools of Religious Law

Imam in Twelver usage names the twelve designated successors of the Prophet before it names the leader of a congregation.

Source An Introduction to Shi'i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ismMoojan Momen
Shia (Twelver), Denominations

For Twelver Shia the Imam is the divinely appointed and sinless successor of the Prophet. There were twelve, the last withdrew into occultation in 874, and he is expected to return. The word is shared with Sunni usage and means something else entirely.

Source An Introduction to Shi'i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ismMoojan Momen
Zaidiyyah, Denominations

The Zaidi Imam is any qualified descendant of Ali who rises and claims the office by the sword. He is neither sinless nor hidden, and there is no fixed number of them.

Source An Introduction to Shi'i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ismMoojan Momen

Instances

Imam, Religious Offices

How this title is used in Islam.

Related To

Imamate, Doctrines

The Imamate is the doctrinal claim of divinely appointed succession that defines the Shia sense of this office; the role and the doctrine are related, not identical, since Sunni Islam uses the same title, Imam, without holding this doctrine at all.

Source An Introduction to Shi'i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ismMoojan Momen
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
John Bowker (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1997art. ImamView the Source
2. An Introduction to Shi'i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ism
Moojan Momen, Yale University Press, 1985On the Imamate as a doctrine of designated and sinless authorityView the Source
An Introduction to Islamic Law
Wael B. Hallaq, Cambridge University Press, 2009On the absence of a clergy and of any ordaining institution in Sunni IslamView the Source
Prayer in Islamic Thought and Practice
Marion Holmes Katz, Cambridge University Press, 2013View the Source
The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines, 2nd edition
Farhad Daftary, Cambridge University Press, 2007View the Source
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