For most of Islam's history, the ulema have been trained in study circles rather than in formal institutions, the traditional madrasa being a mere "place for teaching" rather than the equivalent of Middle Ages Europe's colleges. From the late nineteenth century on, reformist ideas and the need to cope with social and cultural change have led to the creation of modern, formal institutions dedicated to the training of Muslim scholars. According to a common assumption, this development, which Dale Eickelman has termed the "great transformation" of Muslim religious teaching, has "freed" the transmission of knowledge from the yoke of the master-disciple relationship. As a result, exoteric religious authority, which was formerly concentrated in the hands of a handful of ulema, could now be claimed by the increasingly numerous graduates of the new institutes and universities. In this paper, I argue that previous accounts have overestimated the extent of the changes brought about by the modernization of Muslim religious teaching. In contemporary Syria, at least, being recognized as the disciple of a famous master is still a prerequisite for occupying the highest levels of the local clergy. This is in part because private Sharia institutes run by informal networks are the real locus of religious authority in the country. Therefore, climbing the rungs of the religious hierarchy requires one to become part of these networks, which can only be done by selecting a master, often in both exoteric and esoteric-that is, Sufi-matters. Establishing authority through attending only state-owned institutions is exceptional; students at these schools need to have both a formal education and an association with one of the traditional study groups run by famous Muslim scholars. Even more revealing, however, is the fact that some of today's most prominent Syrian ulema do not possess a formal degree in Sharia, as they have been trained exclusively in study circles. Such figures are not the remnants of a vanishing tradition, but the-relatively young-spearheads of networks that view the antediluvian method of teaching as the most capable to face the challenges of modernity. Thanks to its flexibility, this method has allowed Syrian ulema to co-opt graduates of secular faculties (engineers, lawyers, physicians), that is, the very social category that has been identified by many social scientists as the foremost threat to the ulema's religious authority.