It's not the term that's the problem, it's the concept. Islam is clearly against the concept of a clergy and clerics.
However, since you need a shaman type guy to blame stuff on, you gotta invent one. Sorry, but it's just not part of our religion.
As for the direction to ask Malik, yes that's because the Shi'a have instituted some form of clergy (it would seem, correct me if I'm wrong malik), and therefore if you'd like to know about it, you should ask a Shi'a, as I don't believe in it.
Quote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clergyman.
Yeh, since I take my religion from wikipedia, I'm really inclined to go with that... NOT.
Quote:It is deceptive to claim that Muslims religious leaders don't exist on the grounds that they are slightly different from other religious leaders - Duh - it's a different religion.
Even though clergy is non-denominational, and could be used to refer to any religion, in the case of Islam, it can't, because Islam simply doesn't have aa priesthood, no matter what you wanna call it. There's simply no priestly class of Muslims.