Ulama (; , singular , "scholar", also spelled ulema; female is alimah (singular) and uluma (plural)), is defined as the "those recognized as scholars or authorities" in the "religious hierarchy" of the Islamic religious sciences. The guardians of legal and religious tradition in Islam. Often they are "Imams of important mosques, judges, teachers in the religious faculties of universities", or the body of Muslim Islamic scholars have been trained in the whole body of Islamic law and in other Islamic disciplines, but may also be used to include the village mullahs and imams on the lowest rungs of the ladder of Islamic scholarship.In as much they correspond most closely to the class of the Scribes or Rabbis in Judaism.