SHAYKH AL-ISLĀM (Turk., şeyhülislam) is a title associated with Islamic religious figures; it was used most commonly in the period of the Ottoman empire, when it denoted the chief jurisconsult, or muftī, of Istanbul, who was the supreme religious authority in the empire and the administrative head of the Ottoman hierarchy of religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ). The title seems to have come into use in the Islamic east in the late tenth century. From that time it served to distinguish individuals who had achieved prominence in some branch of the faith. Although pre-Ottoman biographical literature mentions the title in connection with Ṣūfī notables, it was even then more commonly, and later almost exclusively, applied to specialists in Islamic holy law, the sharīʿah.

The transition of the term form an honorific to an actual office defies charting. However, from the tenth...