A more modern spelling of
sheik. One which accounts for the actual pronunciation in
Arabic. A shaykh is one who is learned in
Islam. One of the methods by which learning is passed down in Islam is
taqlid, learning from a teacher. Knowledge is passed from teacher to student in a chain from the Prophet
Muhammad (
SAW) himself down to the present era. This chain is referred to as
isnad. The most knowledgeable of shaykhs can detail who is his shaykh, and the shaykh of his shaykh, and the shaykh of his shaykh's shaykh (to bring back images of a childhood
tongue twister), and so on, until one goes back to the
Prophet (
SAW) himself and his
companions. It is through this rigorous scientific method (I am not qualified to detail the rigors of isnad, but the documentation involved makes
six sigma look sloppy) that knowledge of
Islamic jurisprudence is preserved through the ages.
10/16/01As an addendum, it seems to me that sheik an shaykh really are use in two different ways. shaykh is typically used by Muslims to refer to a learned person (shaykhs can be female, by the way, but the disarray in which the ummah finds itself, little in the way of rigorous, lifelong Islamic education is common among men, and females under the Marxist influenced regimes in much of the Muslim world have it much worse than in the past.), whereas sheik normally refers to a ruler of a country or area.