Mehdi Khalaji, an analyst at the Washington Institute who trained as a cleric for fourteen years in Qom, is confident that the clerical establishment supports Khamenei, and that those who dissent are neither politically powerful nor influential within the ulema itself.
The revolt failed and Makram, an influential ally of the ulema, was exiled to Damietta.
Groups like the Indonesian Council of Ulema are also influential in the majority-Muslim country.
Her action in opposing the mullah has been backed by the Ulema - an influential gathering of Islamic clerics and scholars.
Shukri Mustafa, an influential Islamist figure, accused the ulema of providing religious judgments for the sole purpose of government convenience.
Rejection of the event has come not only from hardline groups but also from the country's most influential group of clerics, the Indonesia Ulema Council, whose fatwas are followed by many devoted Muslims.
The judicial establishment, in the broadest sense, is composed of qadis, who give binding judgements in specific court cases, and muftis and other members of the ulema, who issue generalized but highly influential legal opinions (fatwas).
The council, an influential group that lacks binding authority, is made up of the Islamic clergy and ulema, or religious scholars, from various parts of Afghanistan.
Ms. Coomaraswamy found a strong ally in Afghanistan at the influential Ulema Council, the highest religious body in the country, which condemns both the recruitment of children and their sexual abuse as un-Islamic.
A prominent Afghan cleric, Mullah Qyamudin Kashaf, the acting head of the influential Ulema Council of Afghanistan and a Karzai appointee, also called for American authorities to arrest and try Mr. Jones in the Koran burning. 1 2 Next Page » Enayat Najafizada reported from Mazar-i-Sharif and Rod Nordland from Kabul, Afghanistan.
This view is influential.
