Ayatollah

From Wikinfo

Ayatollah (آية الله in Arabic, or آیت‌الله in Persian) means "sign of God". This is one of the high level epithets for the major shiite clergymen. They are experts in high levels of Islamic sciences such as Jurisprudence, Ethics, Philosophy and Irfan, and usually teach in schools ('Hawza') of Islamic Sciences.

Examples:

• Mohammad Beheshti
• Ali Khamenei
• Ruhollah Khomeini
• Ali al-Sistani

References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Ayatollah" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayatollah, used under the GNU Free Documentation License