Editing Ayatollah (section)

===Devaluation trend===
The title of Ayatollah (and other Iranian Shi'i titles) has been "cheapened" since then.<ref name="Algar"/><ref name="Momen205/206"/><ref name="Momen178"/>

[[Roy Mottahedeh]] describes how the title  of ayatollah was determined in the mid to late 20th century.{{blockquote| Only the titles 'jurisconsult' (''[[faqih]]'') and 'model for imitation' (''marja' al-taqlid'') had fixed meaning. Otherwise titles ... really expressed the informal consensus of mullahs as to the degree of deference they wished to show one another. A teacher in madreseh might be greatly offended if a letter from a layman failed to call him 'ayatollah', but he would vigorously reject the title if addressed as an ayatollah in public - vigorously, that is, until he sensed that other mullahs of his level would tolerate hearing him so addressed, at which point he would quietly let his students impose the title on him.<ref>{{cite book | first=Roy | last= Mottahedeh| title= The Mantle of the Prophet : Religion and Politics in Iran |publisher=One World |location= Oxford |orig-year=1985 |year=2000 |page=241}}</ref>}}

According to [[Michael M. J. Fischer]], the [[Iranian Revolution]] led to "rapid inflation of religious titles", so that almost every senior cleric began to be called an Ayatollah.<ref>{{cite book|last=Fischer|first=Michael M. J.|title=Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution|publisher=Harvard University Press]|year=1980|page=2016 |isbn= 9780674466159}}</ref>  raising the number of individuals who call themselves an Ayatollah dramatically.<ref name="Momen205/206">{{harvnb|Momen|1985|page=205–206}}</ref>

An unwritten rule of [[Style (form of address)|addressing]] for Shia clerics has been developed after the 1980s as a result of Iranian Revolution,<ref name="Calmard"/> despite the fact no official institutional way of conferring titles is available.<ref name="Momen178">{{harvnb|Momen|2015|page=178}}</ref>  At first the title that had been reserved for a Marja', was gradually applied to an established Mujtahid.<ref name="Momen, ''Introduction'', 1985, p.205-6"/> With the post-revolutionary bureaucratization of [[Hawza|Shia seminaries]] under the [[Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran|Islamic Republic]], four levels of studies were introduced and those clerics who end the fourth level, also known as ''Dars-e-Kharej'' ({{literal translation|beyond the text}}) and pass the final exam, were called Ayatollahs.<ref name="Golkar2017219"/> [[Moojan Momen]] wrote in 2015 that every cleric who finished his training calls himself an Ayatollah and this trend has led to emergence of "thousands of Ayatollahs".<ref name="Momen178"/>

This inflation led to invention of a new title, ''Ayatollah al-Uzma'' ({{literal translation|Great Sign of God}}).<ref name="Momen178"/> Originally, about half a dozen people were addressed as al-Uzma, but as of 2015, the number of people who claimed that title was reportedly over 50.<ref name="Momen178"/>