Religious leader’s Indian maid skirting coral reef (9)
I believe the answer is:
ayatollah
'religious leader's' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'indian maid skirting coral reef' is the wordplay.
'indian maid' becomes 'ayah' (I've seen this before. I am not sure about the 'indian' bit.).
'skirting' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'coral reef' becomes 'atoll' (atoll is a kind of coral reef).
'ayah' placed around 'atoll' is 'AYATOLLAH'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ayatollah that I've seen before include "Iranian leader" , "High-ranking Shiite religious leader" , "Senior Iranian cleric" , "religious authority" , "Shiite leader, possibly in 10 across" .)