Old Usage
This term was traditionally a slang term in Iran, and it has been completely a derogatory term since the Shah's efforts at westernization. Today in Iran it is almost invariably used as a term of insult, ridicule or disparagement. Ironically, Ayatollah Khomeini himself used the term "Akhoond" as an insult against those clerics that he considered hypocrites and misguided (mostly low-level seminarians who collaborated with the Shah, and unqualified, ignorant village preachers who falsified their own credentials). In Iran, they are also called mullah, molavi, sheikh, haj-agha or rohani. The word 'rohani' means 'spiritual' or 'holy'. 'Rohani' is considered as a more polite term for Muslim clerics, used by Iranian national television and radio, and by devout Muslim families. The term "Akhoond" in Iran is increasingly outmoded, usually with only the older clerics having the title "Akhoond" as part of their name. It has not been used widely as a title since the Qajar era.
In Afghanistan, and among the Pashtun tribes of the Afghan-Pakistan border region, the term is still current in its original sense as an honorific one.
Other names for similar Muslim clerics include Shaykh and Maulana.
Read more about this topic: Akhoond
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)