The revolutionary “spring of freedom” did not last long in the Iranian universities. The revolutionary movement had turned the universities into centers of political activity, where crowds gathered and rival political groups clashed. Control over the Tehran University soccer field for mass rallies became a sign of a political organization’s power. On 11 February 1979, the first tank liberated from the Shah’s army was driven to the campus of Tehran University, the Organization of the People’s Mujahedin set up its headquarters in the Faculty of Sciences, and the Organization of People Fada’ian Guerrillas in the Faculty of Engineering. Between them, the university mosque became the headquarters for an “Imam’s committee,” where fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds stored weapons captured from the Shah’s artillery. When the universities reopened shortly after the February insurrection, similar divides were made within academic buildings of all universities. Various groups partitioned public areas, claimed various rooms, and even parceled out the walls for poster space. Life was as chaotic in the universities as it was outside. However, the difference was that while the Islamic Republic was gaining political hegemony in Iranian society, it was losing the ideological battle in the universities, where radical groups were recruiting and training student activists, many of whom were political organizers in factories, farms, and neighborhoods. The students and faculty who supported the Islamic regime constituted only a small minority.

The attack on the universities began in April 1980, when the Islamic Students Associations began issuing statements demanding that the universities be closed in preparation for an “Islamic rejuvenation” (be’sat Eslami), a “cultural revolution,” and an Islamic “cleansing” (paksazi). Many nonacademic Islamic groups such as the Guardians of the Revolution Corps and the Islamic Association of Machine Tool Workers of Tabriz made declarations in support of the demands of the Islamic students.¹ On 16 April 1980, dissident students disrupted a speech by Hashemi Rafsanjani (then a member of the Revolutionary Council) at the University of Tabriz. Three days later, the Revolutionary Council ordered all the offices of political organizations on campuses evacuated in three days and the universities closed by 5 June in preparation for Islamization of the academic system.² When some student organizations defied the decision of the Revolutionary Council, on 21 April 1980, the Associations of Islamic Students appealed to Ayatollah Khomeini. When he received them, they chanted “Colonial education must be uprooted, the Islamic University must be instituted!” Ayatollah Khomeini responded:

Our universities are foreign dependent. Our universities are of the colonial type. Our university students are Westoxicated (gharbzadeh). . . . Many of our university professors are at the service of the West. They brainwash our youth... Because of their simple-mindedness, the young have believed in the false education that they have received from some of their professors. Now that we want to set up an independent university and make fundamental changes, so that it would not be dependent on the West and Communism, dependent on Marxism, they confront us. This, in itself, shows that our universities are not Islamic and we do not have, and never have had, universities that would educate our youth. This, in itself, is a proof that our youth has not received proper education... The university must become Islamic.³

Thus, the cultural revolution began. The next day in all major universities mobs attacked “nests of intellectual corruption,” as students defended their newly erected fortresses of academic freedom. Many were killed and many more were injured.⁴ The universities were officially shut down, and remained so for over four years awaiting the “Islamic rejuvenation.” At last, the soccer field of Tehran University became the undisputed territory of the Hezbullah and was transformed into the permanent site for Tehran’s Friday prayers.

The responsibility for Islamic rejuvenation the universities was entrusted to the Council for Cultural Revoltion.⁵ Its mission was to develop an appropriate curriculum and to prepare the textbooks needed to set up an Islamic university system. The principal task of the council was to review the social sciences and humanities, especially economics, sociology, law, political science, and psychology. Among these, economics was central because defining the post revolutionary economic order was a controversial issue in the political arena. The Islamic Republic had committed itself to establishing an Islamic economic system, but the question remained what that system was to be like. Defining Islamic economics, therefore, implied setting the parameters for determining an Islamic economic order.

The task of defining the authentic Islamic methodology in these dis6iplines was delegated to the Center for Cooperation of Seminaries and Universities (CCSU; Daftar-e Hamkari-ye Hawzeh va Daneshgah), headed by Muhammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, an instructor in a Qum seminary. Cooperation between hawzeh (seminaries) and universities was encouraged in an effort to unify the religious and the university educational systems, at least in the social sciences and humanities, in which the hawzeh claimed expertise. The subject was addressed by Ayatollah Khomeini:

“Islam has dealt more deeply than anyone else or any school of thought with humanities and human development. You need specialists? You must ask the hawzeh.

...Open the universities, but for humanities they must gradually ask the scholars of the hawzehs in Iran, especially in Qum.”⁶ The CCSU invited a number of university economists to Qum to cooperate with the mudarresin (the instructors of seminaries) in formulating an Islamic methodology for academic disciplines and to propose to the Council for Cultural Revolution their curriculum, The university economists were to inform the mudarresin about their discipline, and in return the economists would receive a course of study in the Islamic world view and methodology. Obviously, the majority of university professors considered the activity of the Council for Cultural Revolution an imposition on their academic freedom and did not take part in this enterprise. The objective of this group of mudarressin and university economists was to examine to what degree the existing paradigms in economics were in harmony with an Islamic world view as defined by the mudarressin. An integral aspect of this examination was the consideration of the contributions that had been made to “Islamic economics” and to sort out the authentic from the spurious (non-Islamic or un-Islamic). Thus; the CCSU would have to examine two strands of thought—academic economics and Islamic economics—to make up its own version of unadulterated Islamic economics.

ECONOMICS IN PREREVOLUTIONARY IRAN

Modern economics is a new discipline in Iran. It was not established until the early 1960s. Before that, students could study “political economy” at the Faculty of Law and Politics at Tehran University, using a curriculum resembling that of the French universities in the early decades of this, century. (The first group of Iranian professors having studied in France in the 1930s and 1940s.) Economics was taught using a descriptive approach emphasizing history, the history of economic thought, and elements of monetary theory and taxation. In the early 1960s an economics curriculum was established at Pahlavi University in Shiraz and at the National University of Iran in Tehran. The faculty of economics at those two universities were educated mainly in American and British universities. At Pahlavi University, even the language of instruction was English. The Faculty of Economics of Tehran University was established in 1967 after a power struggle in the Faculty of Law and Political and Economic Sciences. Its first dean was Hussein Pirnia, who had studied engineering in France’s Ecole Polytechnique and economics under John Maynard Keynes at Cambridge University. Among other professors, Manuchehr Agah had come from Oxford University and Manuchehr Zandi-Haqiqi had studied under Francois Perroux at the University of Paris. The other professors had also studied at various universities in Europe, mainly the University of Paris. The curriculum of the Faculty of Economics of Tehran University was devised in 1968 in consultation with John Hicks and Ursula Hicks, who visited Tehran for that purpose. The economics curriculum at Tehran University, like those at the National University and Pahlavi University, was based on the American model.

Two factors account for the Americanization of the economics curriculum in Iran. In the 1960s, higher education in Iran was revamped and expanded in response to the growing demand for technocrats. Several universities and many more technical colleges were established. The American curriculum and organization of the universities were recognized by the policy makers as the most efficient approach for increasing the output of technocrats. Thus, establishing an economics curriculum based on the American model was an element of the, general policy for higher education in these years. The most dramatic changes were at Tehran University, the bastion of traditional French education. Many of the changes in the institutional organization and curriculum of Tehran University were initiated by Fazlullah Reza, a professor of electrical engineering at Syracuse University before becoming the chancellor of Tehran University in 1967. The appointment of Reza to this prestigious position was a departure from tradition. He had not been a member of the faculty of Tehran University, or even any other Iranian universities (except for a brief stay at the newly established Aryamehr Technological University), and he had been educated in the United States, not in France. (The appointment of presidents and chancellors of all major universities in Iran were made by the Shah.)

Moreover, by the early 1960s, the neoclassical — Keynesian synthesis, dominant in British and American schools, had also become prevalent in many European universities, including the French ones, where many Iranian students still went for their graduate training. Therefore, the policy of Americanization of the curriculum merely accelerated a trend that had already begun.

The growth of economics as a discipline was accompanied by the growth in the number of textbooks. The first modern textbook in economics was a translation of Paul Samuelson’s Economics (first edition, 1948), published in 1964.⁷ A special fund in the development budget was designated by the Plan and Budget Organization to promote the publication of textbooks in economics. In subsequent years, a large number of French and American textbooks were translated into Persian; some were genuine translations, others were, ”free” translations or composites that included selections from different foreign textbooks, without any reference to the original sources. Lecture notes (juzveh) written by professors for their own courses and reproduced and distributed by the departments were also used as textbooks. Mimeographed juzvehs gave both students and professors a sense of security about what was to be taught and what expected a course. Few courses had a syllabus or a reading list. Textbooks and juzvehs were the only teaching materials used.

The economics that was taught at the Iranian universities was in the mainstream, neoclassical—Keynesian tradition. The widely used textbooks in the principles of economics, whether translated or written by Iranians, were modeled after Samuelson’s Economics. Textbooks for other courses also presented mainstream economics (see Appendix A). Departures from this approach were minor.

This limited diversity in methodological approaches may have been partly due to censorship, which, during this time, system excluded those economists with any leftist tendency from university teaching and regarded any criticism of main stream economics or the market system as an indication of leftist orientation. Being counted as a leftist could have serious political repercussions, but nevertheless, a small number of academic economists criticized mainstream economics in their lectures or lecture notes. Censorship was, however, only a partial explanation for the limited methodological diversity of academic economics because it mainly restricted advocacy of the radical paradigms in economics. Even liberal interpretations and the not-so-radical paradigms, such as “institutionalism,” presented in conservative academic departments in the United States, were almost nonexistent in Iran. The liberal interpretive literature or case studies that were translated and available in Iran were seldom assigned.

Against this conservative and narrowly focused academic economics, there was a strong countercurrent of “critical” or “social” analysis coming from nonacademic publishing that catered to the insatiable demand of the Iranian intelligentsia for political economy. The intelligentsia was mainly on the left, and their literature was comprised of translations of leftist books espousing a radical interpretation of capitalism and imperialism. Among the translators, only a few were professional economists. The majority were self-educated in economics and English, the predominant language of the translations. The selection of works was often limited by the avail ability of the original texts. Only a small collection of foreign-language books was available in bookstores or libraries. Therefore, translators relied on their friends abroad and book reviews in the limited number of periodicals available to them for their selections. Publications of Monthly Review Press and Progress Publishers were more frequently translated because these two publishers had become well known in the circle of translators. Moreover, the selection of translations was limited by the restrictions of censorship. Therefore, the coverage of topics was seriously fragmented and few classic texts were translated. No translation of the works of Marx or the classics of Marxism were available in Persian.⁸ This literature was not available to Iranian scholars even in foreign languages, except in rare circum stances, because the state regarded this literature as subversive.

The quality of translations was also often poor. The limitations of the translators’ knowledge of economics and of the language of the original text were only com pounded by the constraints of state censorship. Translations were frequently truncated and inaccurate. Translators would have to omit the sections that censorship would not allow. They would also have to camouflage forbidden terminology. For example, “group” (guruh) would be used for “class” (tabaqeh), “market system” (nezam-e-bazar) for “capitalism” (kapitalizm), “planned economy” (eqtesad barnameh) for “socialism” (susializm), “benefiting” (bahregiri) for “exploitation” (bahrekeshi or estesmar), “employees” (karkunan or huquqbegiran) for “workers” (kargaran), “manager” (mudir) or “entrepreneur” (karfarma) for “capitalist” (kapitalist), and so on.

Nevertheless, some books on Marxist economics were published in prerevolutionary Iran. Notable among these were the volumes edited and translated by Farhad Nomani, which introduced some of the contemporary Marxist literature to Iranian students.⁹ The first full text of Marxist economics appeared in print in the late 1970s, a Persian translation of a textbook prepared by members of the Soviet Union’s Academy of Sciences.¹⁰ The overwhelming popularity of this book attracted the attention of the censor, which had apparently permitted the distribution of the book without noting its content.” It was soon banned and its translator imprisoned. The book re appeared when the revolutionary movement opened the floodgate to banned literature. This was the basic text of Marxist economics used by that segment of the intelligentsia who had no access to similar textbooks in foreign languages.

The two worlds of economics—the mainstream approach of the academy and its countercurrent of radical political economy—were both deficient and underdeveloped. They, nevertheless, formed a fertile milieu for the inquisitive, enthusiastic, and generally bright economics students of Iranian universities, many of whom considered political economy as an indispensable element of their political activism. Students were invariably aware of the “important” books of political economy and social criticism that appeared in the market. Their interests included literature, history, and other social sciences, particularly sociology, where a more varied range of material was available.¹² One could tell the impact of a book by the questions students would ask their professors in or out of class. Students would read political economy books not required for their courses and often used the arguments they found there to confront, or even embarrass, their conservative professors who were known among students for “dishing out the same old reactionary trash.”

In this way, undergraduates received a peculiar form of education in economics. They learned the basics of mainstream economics in a curriculum that was heavily biased toward specialized education. (There were only a few general education requirements, which neither the faculty nor the students took seriously.) They also learned a good deal of statistics and econometrics.’ They supplemented this curriculum with their own extensive inquiry into political economy, mainly Marxism. By the end of the undergraduate program, an average economics student would know some basic elements of Marxism and would have some knowledge of the available literature in Iran on political economy) No doubt, this knowledge was fragmented and unsystematic. Although students were not engaged in critical thinking in their formal curriculum, as there were few occasions for open discussions of issues in classes and rarely ever were they required to write critical papers or take challenging exams, they were motivated toward critical analysis of social issues and there was plenty of discussion and debate on political economy among students themselves. Therefore, intellectual enthusiasm, political activism, and the strong analytical ability of students (screened in the very competitive national entrance examination with high emphasis on mathematics) made up, to a great extent, for the shortcomings in the formal structure of university education in economics. Many economics graduates of the l960s and the 1970s became able technocrats in the Plan and Budget Organization, the Central Bank, Statistical Center of Iran, and various ministries, banks, and other public or enterprises. Some of these graduates earned doctorate degrees abroad (many in the United States) in the 1970s and the early 1980s. Some remained in the universities of the United States and Europe, others returned to Iran.

REVOLUTIONARY ISLAMIC ECONOMICS

The discussion of Islamic economics did not begin in Iran until the revolutionary movement began in 1978. Taleqani’s Esläm va Mälekiyyat (first published in Tehran in 1951) and the Persian translation of Baqir Sadr’s Iqtisaduna (first published in Arabic in Beirut in 1961), which appeared in Iran in 1971, did not receive much attention. No one in the ranks of professional economists considered himself or herself an Islamic economist, nor had anyone in this profession written any books or articles that could be considered even a prelude to Islamic economics. Among the three Iranian economists who attended the First International Conference on Islamic Economics in Mecca in 1976, none was “Islamic.”¹⁵ Islamic economics entered the Iranian intellectual arena only in the months before the fall of the Shah. Abulhasan Banisadr’s Eqtesad-e Tawhidi was first published abroad in 1978. A considerable number of makeshift pamphlets began appearing late in 1978 on dimensions of Islamic economics,¹⁶ but many were by writers who did not know much about economics or Islam.

The major precursor to the methodology of revolutionary Islamic economics in Iran was Ali Shariati, a Muslim intellectual with a Third World view in the Fanon tradition, a strong affinity for Marx and Sartre, and some familiarity with modern European intellectual currents. He began his activist academic career in Iran in 1964, upon his return from France, where he had studied sociology at the University of Paris. In his short and intense career (he died in 1977) as an intellectual, agitator he began a debate on the social epistemology of Islam. He challenged the clerical establishment by declaring Islam to be the -religion of the oppressed and based on a philosophy of liberation, and not a stale and degenerate dogma propagated by the conservative clergy.¹⁷ The central element of Shariati’s radical interpretation of Islam is his philosophy of history. It is clearly an Islamicized version of historical materialism. He contends that the confrontation between Cain and Abel reflects the basic contradiction in history: private versus communal owner ship. To Shariati, Abel, who offers a camel, represents “the age of a pasture-based economy, of the primitive socialism that preceded ownership,” and Cain, who offers corn, represents “the system of agriculture, and individual monopoly ownership.”¹⁸ When Cain kills Abel, Shariati claims, primitive communism ends and private ownership begins—and with it, the permanent war between the owners and the dispossessed.

Shariati uses a class analysis that in form, content, and language is distinctly Marxist.¹⁹ Not surprisingly, he was charged by his orthodox Muslim opponents with “materialism,” a heresy for one who claims a belief in Islam. Shariati, however, rejected the charge of materialism while acknowledging some similarities between his views and the thoughts of Marx.²⁰ Shariati’s interpretation of Islam attracted many young political activists who leaned toward Marxism. He was aware of the affinity of Iranian intellectuals for Marxism and repeatedly addressed in his lectures the sense of inferiority Muslim intellectuals had toward Marxism.²¹

An interesting aspect of Shariati’s exposition of Islam and Marxism was his explicit and unaltered use of Marxist terminology at a time when terms such as “exploitation” and “proletariat,” and any references to class struggle or revolution could not pass the censor and leftist literature had to change terminology constantly to remain in public discourse. In so doing, Shariati made a significant contribution to promoting Marxism and the critique of imperialism in Iran by introducing a relatively accurate ‘and consistent Marxist terminology and by openly discussing the outline of a Marxist analysis. Ironically, this made Shariati suspect in some leftist circles for allegedly receiving the approval of the regime for attacking Marxism. When his refutation of Marx, Ensan, Marksizm va Eslam, in the Kayhan daily, was published upon his release from prison, it accentuated the leftist criticism of Shariati’s “anti- Marxism.”²² Similarly, the conservative clergy claimed that the regime supported Shariati’s attack on Islam. Neither group, however, made their charges publicly be cause of the popularity that Shariati enjoyed among the religious intelligentsia.

Shariati presented a radical interpretation of Shi’ism. According to him, Islam teaches the oppressed to liberate themselves from the indignities of class relations, which have subjected them to poverty and exploitation,²³ and man can be liberated only by abolishing the institution of ownership and erecting a classless society.²⁴

Many of Shariati’s disciples were the young activists who joined Organization of People’s Mujahedin or became its sympathizers. The Mujahedin’s philosophy .of history was similar to that of Shariati. Their adherence to Marxism, however, was more explicit than Shariati’s.²⁵ They believed that class struggle was the essential force of historical change and that a monotheistic social order would be a classless society.²⁶

The Mujahedin, like Shariati, opposed capitalism.²⁷ They seemed aware of dependency theory and subscribed to its analysis and conclusions. They maintained that with the domination of imperialism in the world economic order, capitalist development was no longer a viable strategy for countries in the periphery; there fore, the aim should be to eradicate dependency and pursue a strategy that would eliminate class relations.²⁸

The Mujahedin relied on a strict Marxist analysis of market relations. They even had a textbook, Economics in Simple Language, for teaching the principles of economics to the new recruits in their underground ideological training.²⁹ This book, only 209 pages long and written by one of the Mujahedin, is a simplified version of Marx’s labor theory of value. In the late 1970s, when censorship was lifted in the course of the revolution, this book was widely read, and was even adopted as a textbook in some universities in the immediate post revolutionary period.

Traces of Marxist methodology are apparent in the works of Islamic reformers who wrote treatises on Islamic economics in the revolutionary years. Among these reformers is Habibullah Peyman who also rejects property relations in Islam. But unlike Shariati and the Mujahedin, Peyman’s viewpoint is scholastic. He extends the argument of God’s ownership to object to any exclusion of laborers from access to the means of production. Since the Quran states that “Unto Allah belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth” (3:129),³⁰ Peyrnan argues that resources must be accessible to all who would want to apply their creative labor to them.³¹ This is the so-called people’s (nas) ownership doctrine, suggesting that the notion of ownership in Islam is a collective one.³² Peyman argues that one may possess only the fruit of his labor, and no more than one needs.³³ He also maintains that tools are the products of human civilization, and hence their ownership may not be monopolized. That is, everyone has the right to own the tools of production.³⁴ He rejects capital accumulation as un-Islamic, because capital would be accumulated only by exploitation. He makes his point using a strictly Marxist analysis. He argues that excess income may be used for purchasing tools and resources. Then, the dispossessed workers have no choice but to offer themselves for hire to whomever possesses the means. The owners of the means of production will exploit the w9rkers by appropriating the surplus value created by their labor.³⁵ Exploitation will lead to an increase in the scale of production, thus enabling the capitalists to hire more workers and to appropriate more surplus. All this would not have happened, according to Peyman, if everyone could possess the means of production.³⁶ In this way, Peyman reaches a Sismondian conclusion, proposing a capitalism of the petty bourgeoisie.³⁷

Peyman’s critique of capitalism and exploitation and his vision of an ideal Islamic society had a special appeal among those Muslim radicals who were not ideologically comfortable with the historical materialism of the Mujahedin, particularly after they were branded as hypocrites (munafeq) by the ideologues of the Islamic Republic in 1981. Peyman organized a. small group of followers into the Society of Combatant Muslims (Jame e-ye Musalmanan-e Mubarez). Peyman’s views on economic matters, however, extended far beyond this circle. His weekly newspaper, Ummat, became highly influential among the young radicals of the Islamic Republic in the early 1980s, This influence was so significant that the policies of the radical faction of the Islamic Republic, often known as the “Imam’s way” (Khatt-e Emam), were at times referred to as the views of the Ummatiha.

Peyman’s radical interpretation of Islamic economics was a theological presentation of the countercurrent of economics in the pre-Revolutionary period. In spite of its scholastic twist, which sought to rely on the authority of the Quran and other sources of Islamic jurisprudence, this theological economic “paradigm” was nevertheless ideologically and methodologically Marxian. This could very well be the reason for the popularity of the radical interpretations of Islamic economics among young Muslim activist intellectuals, particularly the university students, who found themselves in tune with .the secular radical commitment to a socialist social order. A clear line of epistemological demarcation between the two groups did not seem to matter at the practical level because the sources of intellectual dissemination appeared quite authoritative in both camps.

POPULIST ISLAMIC ECONOMICS

The radical approaches of Shariati, the Mujahedin, and the Ummatiha rely merely on Marxian methodology. Populist Islamic economics, however, is a theological re vision of neoclassical economics. Muhammad Baqir Sadr, whose treatise has been influential among the ideologues of the Islamic Republic, is unequivocal about the methodological orientation of Islamic economics.³⁸ He states that Islamic economics is not a science attempting to explain the objective phenomena but “a revolution for transforming a malevolent phenomenon to an auspicious one.”³⁹ He suggests that only when an Islamic economic system is in place can the science of Islamic economics be established to explain the working of that system. According to Sadr, therefore, there is no basis for what may be called Islamic economics.⁴⁰ Meanwhile, he points out, Islamic economists can be engaged in speculating about the general tendencies under the assumed conditions in an Islamic economic system.⁴¹

Sadr’s conception of an Islamic economic order is a regulated market economy. The functioning of this market economy is based, according to Sadr, on the principles of mixed ownership, limited economic freedom, and social justice.⁴² Sadr’s notion of mixed ownership rests on the Islamic dictum that God owns all natural re sources.⁴³ Therefore, the Islamic state exercises ownership over the anfal, which includes land, water, mineral deposits, as well as the spoils of war: The state can dispose of these resources, or their incomes, in the particular ways that Islamic jurisprudence determines.

Sadr contends that individual freedom in Islam is limited by the precepts of Islam. Therefore, the state may impose limits on the action of individuals, including their exercise of ownership rights, if they harm the welfare of the society by their actions.⁴⁴ Sadr prescribes for the state the role of maintaining a “social balance,” where a minimum level of welfare is provided for all members of the society. Maintaining this social balance, according to Sadr, requires limiting concentration of capital by individuals.⁴⁵

In principle, Sadr’s prescribed Islamic economic order is very similar to modern capitalism, where the role of the state in maintaining social stability has been recognized. The affinity of Sadr with the principles of the capitalist economic order is also reflected in his method of analysis of market relations. Nearly all of the first volume of his Our Economics is given to a refutation of Marxist methodology. He rejects Marx’s labor theory of value in an attempt to reject the notion of exploitation of labor by capital. In this theoretical discourse he relies on a utility explanation of value formation:

The relationship between use [value] and [exchange] may be understood in a psychological context because use value is the source of utility and utility is the measure and source of value... But use value, even though the source of value, does not solely determine the relative utility of a good... Relative utility is inversely related to the availability of a good. Thus, the more available the supply of a good, the lower the relative utility of it, and con sequently the lower the value of the good.⁴⁶

Recognizing that this analysis could put him on the side of the defenders of capitalism, Sadr emphasizes that his analysis reflects common elements between Islam and capitalism, but that this does not imply that he is defending Western capitalism, with its many wrongs and wrongdoing.⁴⁷ The commonality is understandable in view of Sadr’s claim that Islam d6es not pretend to possess a methodological paradigm, but it was not reassuring to Muslim activist reformers who did not want to approve either capitalism or the methodological paradigm that sanctions it. The countercurrent of political economy had already made the social reality of capital ism and the ideological bases of the neoclassical methodology distinctly identifiable entities in the social and intellectual spheres. Even the Persian translator of Sadr finds his approval of capitalism objectionable and voices his disagreement with it.⁴⁸

QUM’S AUTHENTICATED VERSION OF ISLAMIC ECONOMICS

The mudarresin published their authenticated version of Islamic economics in l984.⁴⁹ It is based on the traditional interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence, which the mudarresin find compatible with the market system and neoclassical economics. Although the mudarresin are in agreement with Sadr on these principles, they put aside his prescription for the state to maintain a “social balance” and to set limits on the accumulation of large capital. Instead the mudarresin emphasize economic growth against social equity and declare the quest for profit as a legitimate Islamic motive. To them, the outcome of the market relations is not only rational but also fair. The mudarresin go even beyond the claims of neoclassical economists, who stay away from the question of fairness.

According to the mudarresin, attaining “maximum welfare” in a neoclassical sense is the aim of an Islamic economic system.⁵⁰ However, since the society con fronts the dichotomy of “unlimited wants—limited resources,”⁵¹ the state must establish the limits of individual rights.⁵² Thus, through an Aristotelian analysis they conclude that property rights must be protected to prevent social disorder. This view on property rights in the context of a market economy is based on the mudarresin’s acceptance of two fundamental axioms of neoclassical economics: (1) the scarcity of resources and (2) the legitimacy of profit accumulation.

The notion of scarcity has been viewed by some Islamic economists as inconsistent with Islam’s teachings. The Quran states that God in His infinite wisdom has provided all the bounties necessary for Man’s life on earth. “Lo! We have created everything by measure” (54:49). These economists argue that any apparent scarcity of the resources available to humanity is the result of inadequate social arrangements. For example, Banisadr argues that scarcity is no more than a manifestation of the existing “coercive social relations,” which will be done away with in his idealized Islamic society,⁵⁴ and claims that “the existing economic science teaches how to manipulate and even aggravate scarcity in order to acquire maximum coercive power.”⁵⁵ To the mudarresin, however, the Quran verses describing abundance on earth are only references to the circumstances at the time of the return of the Hid den Imam, when “the earth will bring out all of its resources, and God’s bounties will be abundant to the pious.”⁵⁶

The mudarresin also accept the legitimacy of capital accumulation. Peyman, who rejects capital accumulation in the context of the Islamic principle of God’s ownership, argues that when a few individuals accumulate capital, many more will be deprived of access to the use of natural resources, and that sets up the arena for exploitation of those who have no resources other than their labor by those who have monopolized God-given resources.⁵⁷ Thus, capital accumulation and wage labor are the two sides of the coin of exploitation in Peyrnan’s analysis.

The mudarresin’s counterargument to this position is twofold. First, they argue, like the neoclassical that seeking distributional equity would jeopardize economic growth, and thus, maximization of social welfare. Moreover, they point out that wage labor helps “those who money” but are limited in their ability to work. As a result, society as a whole will be better off by the union of capital and labor. Second, they find nothing un-Islamic about wage labor. Objections to wage labor by some Islamic economists rests on the Quranic verse stating that “And that man hath only that for which he maketh effort” (52:39). These economists— including Sadr, Peyman, and Banisadr—argue that “fruits of nature” may be enjoyed only by those who acquire them through their own labor. The mudarresin state, however, that one’s ownership of natural resources is not determined only by one’s labor. They maintain that hiring wage workers is acceptable in Islam, as long as workers receive “fair” wages.⁵⁹ When “fair” wages are paid, the mudarresin argue, workers neither gain nor lose by being employed by others instead of working for themselves because the value that they, add to natural resources is equal to the wage that they receive.⁶⁰ To the mudarresin, market wages and prices are “fair” measures of value in exchange relations, and free fluctuations of the markets are necessary for “increasing the efficiency of the economic system.” Therefore, whatever wages the employees. as long as they correspond to the market rate, are fair and equitable.

According to the mudarresin, whatever individuals own through various gainful activities in the market is legitimate according to Islam, as long as these activities are free of deceit and other illegitimate practices, such as usury.⁶² Therefore, the muderresin, in spite of their occasional condemnation of Western emphasize the importance of private initiatives in the marketplace as a means for in creasing the productive capacities of the economy.⁶³

The mudarresin’s Islamic economics provides the blueprint for constructing a market economy with little state intervention. The mudarresin subscribe to the most conservative interpretation of modern economics, which even ignores “market imperfections.” Therefore, they reject many areas of state intervention that are common practice in the industrialized and developing economies, such as labor laws and foreign-exchange restrictions. The authenticated version of Islamic economics ideologically defends capitalist relations of production and rejects the egalitarianism of revolutionary Islamic economics. It even rejects Sadr’s populist notion of “social balance.” Methodologically, it is neoclassical. Prices and wages are determined by the market, and they are fair and equitable as long as transactions are made with adequate knowledge of the parties invo1ved, so long as the transactions are devoid of deception and fraud. Efficiency and economic growth are high priorities in the economic system, and the market mechanism is believed to ensure them. Therefore, E as far as the mudarresin are concerned, the analytical framework of mainstream economics is ‘a body of scientific views and, as such, it is not necessarily inconsistent ‘ with Islam.

AN ISLAMIC—NEOCLASSICAL--KEYNESIAN CURRICULUM

In accordance with this ideological-methodological manifesto of the mudarresin, in February 1984 the Council for Cultural Revolution proposed a national curriculum for economics for all Iranian universities, to be adopted when the universities re opened in the fall of 1984. Iranian universities began adopting this new program while the proposal was still being discussed by the High Council of Programming at the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education. After several years of deliberation, in December 1991, a revised version was officially accepted by the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education as the curriculum for economics in all Iranian universities.

According to the memorandum of the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education, the objective of the economics curriculum is to educate experts who (1) have an Islamic world view and way of thinking, consistent with the fundamentals of Islamic economics; (2) can analyze the problems of public and private enterprises and will be able to cooperate with senior experts on these matters;(3) can take responsibility in various levels of management in state-owned and private enterprises; and (4) have sufficient background for pursuing graduate education.⁶⁴

This program of study is composed of 144 credits to be taken by students in eight semesters of seventeen weeks each. It is composed of 23 credits in general education, 81 credits in core courses in economics, and 40 credits in the area of the student’s specialty in economics. The curriculum in economics specifies six areas of specialization: economic theory, business economics, industrial economics, transportation economics, money and banking, and agricultural economics.

The structure of the curriculum is similar to that in American universities, except for its heavy emphasis on courses in economics and a general disregard for non- major electives or for a minor subject. Disciplinary emphasis has been a general characteristic of Iranian university education, which has always been viewed as professional training or a preparatory education for graduate studies. This emphasis is clearly noted in the mission statement of the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education, where college graduates are expected to be experts (karshenas) who would work with senior experts (presumably postdoctoral) or would continue into graduate studies to become senior experts themselves.

The general education program in the curriculum is heavily loaded with Islamic studies. Fourteen of the twenty-three credits in the General Education program are dedicated to Islamic studies (Table 1). It, however, includes no study of literature,

TABLE 1 General education programs for economics majors

Course

Number                                                               Course                                                                                  Credits

01                           Persian I: text, grammar, and writing skills                                                         2

02                          foreign language I                                                                                                           2

03                          Islamic studies I                                                                                                              2

04                          Islamic ethics and values I                                                                                         2

05                          physical education I                                                                                                      1

06                          Persian II: text, grammar, and writing skills                                                       2

07                          foreign language II                                                                                                         2

08                          Islamic studies II                                                                                                            2

09                          Islamic ethics and values II                                                                                       2

10                           physical education II                                                                                                    1

11                           history of Islam                                                                                                               2

12                           Islamic revolution and its causes                                                                            2

13                           Islamic texts                                                                                                                     2

Total                                                                                                                                     23

Source. Ministry of Culture and Higher “Memorandum,” (22 December 1991),

philosophy, the sciences, or non-Islamic history. In fact, no student of economics is given the opportunity to study the history of Iran, or the world, or to become familiar with any school of philosophical thought other than that of Islam. The general education program is the only place where such courses could be taken because the rest of the program consists only of economics courses. The students must choose their electives among economics courses in their specialty.

Twenty-five core courses in economics constitute the largest proportion of the course of study for economics majors (Table 2). Principles of economics is not included in this core because it is assumed to be a preuniversity course. All universities, however, offer this course and require students to take it. Although the number of core courses in economics is much larger than the total requirements of economics courses for an undergraduate degree in the same discipline in the United States, the array of courses is similar to those available in American universities. These courses are essentially the same as those that constituted the core of the undergraduate degree in economics in the pre-revolutionary years. The Islamization of the curriculum has had little impact. Only two courses in the core are designated as Islamic courses: jurisprudential principles of the Islamic economy and the economic system of the golden age of Islam. Neither is a course in economic theory.

After completing the core program, students are expected to pursue their specialization in one of the six areas of economics. In practice, however, only two areas of specialization are offered at major universities—economic theory and business economics. Theory is regarded as more rigorous and prestigious area and is more popular among students. Students must take a total of forty credits of required (28) and elective (12) courses in economics (Table 3). These courses, too, are the same as standard offerings at American universities. The only course with an Islamic orientation in this group is Islamic banking (Economics 329).

TABLE 2 Core courses for economics majors

Course

Number                                               Course                                                  Credits                 Prerequisites

101                        economics principles                                                    4”                          

201                        foreign language III                                                       3                             07

202                        principles of organization and management ^b     3

203                        commercial law ^b                                                             3

204                        introduction to sociology ^b                                              3

205                        mathematics I                                                                  4

206                        mathematics II                                                               4                             205

207                       statistics I                                                                           4                             205

208                        statistics II                                                                         4                             206, 207

209                        research method                                                             3                             208

210                        accounting I                                                                      3                            

211                         accounting II                                                                    3                             210

212                        economic geography of Iran ^b                                                    4                            

213                        microeconomics I                                                          4                            

214                        microeconomics II                                                        4                             213

215                        macroeconomics I                                                         4                             213

216                        macroeconomics II                                                       4                             215

217                        money and banking                                                        3                             216

218                        jurisprudential principles of the Islamic economy3                       214,216

219                        economics of the public sector I                              3                             214, 216

220                        the system of the golden age of Islam                    3                             214, 216

221                        economic systems ^b                                                                                    3                             220

222                        international trade                                                         3                             214, 216

223                        international finance                                                     3                             222

224                        economic development                                                3                            214, 216

225                        the Iranian economy                                                     3                             224

Total                                                                                     81

^a It is assumed to have been taken in high school. An economics department may offer it, if needed.

^b These courses may be replaced by courses from the list of electives.

Source: See Table 1.

There is also little difference in content between the courses included in the program of Ministry of Culture and Higher Education and similar courses in an American university. The format of the economics principles course (Economics 101) is a close replica of an elementary course in that topic in many American universities (Table 4). It begins with scarcity-of-choice axioms of neoclassical economics and presents an e1emer analysis of price theory and Keynesian macro economics, as they are generally offered to non economics majors in American universities. Unlike American courses in introductory economics, which make an effort to show the social relevance of economics (from either liberal or conservative points of view), the content of Economics 101 does not address any social issues.

The four courses in microeconomies (Economics 2 13—214) and macroeconomics (Economics 2 15—216) are the ‘foundations of the major because they form the pre requisites for all other economics courses. The first course in each set ‘forms the two-semester economics principles course that would be required for entering the

TABLE 3 Specialized courses in economic theory

Course 

Number                               Course                                                                  Credits                 Prerequisites

Required (28 credits)

301                                        agricultural economics                                3                             214       

302                                        managerial economics                                  3                             214,208

303                                        economics of the public sector II            3                             219

304                                        mathematical economics                            3                             206,214,216

305                                        econometrics                                                    4                             206,214,216

306                                        history of economic thought                     3                             214, 216

307                                       project evaluation                                          3                             214, 216

308                                        economic planning                                         3                             224

309                                        resource economics                                      3                             214

Electives (12 credits)

310                                        oil and energy economics                           3                             309

311                                         introduction to computer programming3                           205

312                                        budgeting                                                           3                             219

313                                        urban economics                                            3                             214,216

314                                        regional economics                                        3                             214,216

315                                        research operation                                         3                             208

316                                        corporate accounting                                   3                             214

317                                        labor economics                                              3                             214

318                                        welfare economics                                          3                             214

319                                        economics of cooperatives                         3                             224

320                                        centrally planned economies                    3                             221       

321        economic problems of Third World countries                   3                             224

322                                        national accounting                                       3                             216

323                                        probability and statistical inferences     3                             208

324                                        mathematics III                                               3                            206       

325                                        finance management I                                  3                             211

326                                        industrial economics                                     3                             214,216

327                                        transportation economics I                       3                             214

328                                        principles of insurance                                 3                             205

329                                        Islamic banking                                               3                             217

330                                        demography                                                      3                             208

331                                        applied econometrics                                   3                             305

332                                        selected topics in economics I                  1-3                         214,216

333                                        selected topics in economics II               1-3                         214,216

334                                        selected topics in economics III            1-3                         214,216              

335                                        foreign language IV                                        3                             201

Source: See Table 1.

major in the American universities. The statements of purpose in the first course in microeconomics and macroeconomics are identical. They state that:

The objective of this course is to teach the, theories of economics at the micro [macro] level and to present them in the context of Islamic principles and precepts, as revealed by the Islamic world view. In drawing this course outline it has been attempted to make a logical connection between the scienti6c analysis of economics and the values and the theological view points of Islam.⁶⁵

TABLE 4 Table of Contents of Economics Principles 101

A: An introduction to economics

1. what is economics?

2. scarcity and choice: the economic problem

3. demand and supply: an overview

4. microeconomics and macroeconomics

B: Macroeconomics

5. income and expenditure

6. equilibrium on the demand side

7. changes on the demand side: multiplier

8. equilibrium on the supply side

9. fiscal policy and supply side economics

10. money and banking

11. monetary policy and the national economy

C: Microeconomics

12. consumer choice and individual demand

13. market demand

14. inputs and production costs

15. optimum output and price: marginal analysis

16. firm and industry in perfect competition

17. price system and economic liberalism

18. monopoly

19. the market spectrum between perfect competition and monopoly

20. market mechanism: market failures and their remedies

21. pricing of inputs.

22. labor: the important input

23. comparison of economic systems: what are the choices?

Source. See Table 1.

Thus in accordance with Sadr and the mudarresin mainstream (Western) economics is viewed as the “science of economics,” and Islamic economics is presented as a juxtaposition of this “scientific analysis” with the institutional arrangements prescribed by Islam The principles of self-interest and rationality of economic agents, as well as the consumer’s effort in maximizing utility and the firm’s objective in maximizing profit, are assumed to be true. In this way, the format of presentation follows the standard neoclassical analysis, with minor departures in explaining the terms of Islamic contracts and the desirability of introducing social objectives in the utility function of the consumer and the profit function of the firm. The study of production and cost functions are followed by the analysis of market structure (pure competition, monopoly, oligopoly, and monopolistic competition), factor markets, general equilibrium, and neoclassical welfare analysis. This format is very similar to that of the standard microeconomics courses presented in American textbooks. The same degree of similarity is observed in other core courses, such as macroeconomics, international trade, international finance, and economic development. Even the course on money and banking, in spite of the rejection of interest in Islam and in the Islamic Republic, is a replica of standard courses on monetary theory with all the usual elaboration about the role of interest in the money market in a macro analysis of the economy. Students may take a separate course on Islamic banking (Economics 329) among their electives.

The curriculum in economics, as approved by the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education of the Islamic Republic, is distinctly American in form and character. This correspondence is also revealed in the textbooks that are widely used in the Iranian universities (Appendix B). Although there is a relatively large number of economics textbooks written in English by Indo-Pakistani and Arab Islamic economists—attempting to Islamicize mainstream economic theory—few are translated into Persian. Even the Islamicized economics textbooks written by Iranian authors are rarely adopted in the basic economic courses.⁶⁶

The similarity between the American and the Iranian economics curriculum may be explained by the domination of American-educated economists in the Iranian universities. The director of the Economics Division of the Council for Cultural Revolution, for example, earned his doctorate in economics in the United States and was a member of the faculty of Cleveland State University before joining the council in 1980. In 1993, in the Faculty of Economics of Tehran University, out of thirty-four members twenty-eight had doctorate degrees: sixteen from the United States, four’ from France, three from two from Britain, two from Iran, and one from Turkey. The large majority of the American-educated professors rely mainly on American textbooks of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Both the Council for Cultural Revolution and the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education promote the translation of textbooks in major fields of study. The Center for University Publications (Markaz-e Nashr-e Daneshgahi) of the Council for Cultural Revolution began its operation by commissioning translations of textbooks while the universities were closed. The Center for the Study arid Publication of Textbooks in Humanities (Sazman Mutaleeh va Tadvin Kutub-e Ulum-e Ensani) of the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education has also corn missioned translations of textbooks. These governmental publishing houses operate in addition to the traditional university press and the assorted ministries and agencies of the government that are engaged in the publication of textbooks, For example, the Ministry of Planning and Budget published Todaro’s Economic Development and the Iranian Radio and Television is the publisher of Dornbusch and Fischer’s Macroeconomics.

There has been little “Islamization” in the structure of the economics program in postrevolutionary Iran. The curriculum and the list of courses are nearly what they were before the revolution. The standardized curriculum of the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education prescribes, however, an updated model of the economic curriculum that is offered in American universities. This change is reflected in the emphasis on quantitative methods (which was previously common only in some universities, and rarely in technical colleges) and the introduction of some recent topics in economic theory in the prescribed content of courses.

An important difference between the prescribed content of the courses of the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education and those that were offered in the pre revolutionary period is that some new courses offer an explicit but unsystematic criticism of the international economic order. Dependency theory and the theory of imperialism are briefly covered in the course description of international trade (Economics 222). International finance (Economics 223) includes a section on the “analysis of extraction of surplus” and “unequal exchange.” Criticism of the inter national economic order is implied in the statement of objectives in the course on economic development (Economics 224). This course aims to teach students the analytical skills for answering the following questions:

What are the causes of poverty and the slow economic growth for the majority of Asians, Africans and Latin Americans? ... To what extent, and how, have the worlds of capitalism and Communism been responsible for the backwardness of these [economies]? How can we liberate ourselves from dependency on the West and from the domination of imperialism? Can theories of Western authors help the Third World nations?

The content of this course, however, does not provide any analysis that would lead to answering those questions. It surveys mainstream development theory as of the early 1970s. The recognition of topics such as imperialism, dependency, and unequal exchange in the official curriculum of the economics is nevertheless significant in comparison to the curriculum of the prerevolutionary period when such terminology was within the realm of underground literature.

The other major change lies in the attempt to standardize the curriculum for ail universities-even though such a goal is not feasible especially since staffing such a large number pf courses is not possible at the provincial universities. Even most American universities, save the major research universities with a large economics faculty, cannot staff such a wide variety of courses. In Iran the issue is magnified by a shortage of economics professors.

THE ENVIRONMENT OF LEARNING

The staffing problem has been partially “solved” by a method that became prevalent in the 1970s when the demand for professors was growing much faster than the number of those entering the field. Then, the arrangement was for “sermon-giving professors” (ustadha-ye manbari) to circulate among universities and technical colleges lecturing for hourly honoraria. Today that practice is used on a much larger scale and the amount of traveling has increased as the shortage of professors has become more acute. Often the sermon-giving professors fly daily to various provinces for a full day of lectures—sometimes for as much as ten hours in one day—thus acquiring the English nickname of “flying professors.” Teaching thirty to fifty hours in a week is common for these professors, who are generally the permanent faculty members of one of the major universities. A normal teaching load in major universities is two courses per semester, six contact hours a week.

The low salary of university professors is the major reason that this practice is so popular. In the last two decades, the beginning salary for a university professor has remained nearly equal to the rent for a small middle-class apartment in Tehran. The flying professors manage to earn more than their regular salary from their honoraria. The implications of this practice for economics pedagogy are obvious: professors are rarely available to students, and they assign few readings other than a textbook or a light juzveh. The standard assignment for an undergraduate course is only one anal examination; there ar no papers or reports, no mid-terms or other hourly exams or quizzes. What makes up for this pedagogical inadequacy, to some extent, is the large number of economics courses in the curriculum where the basic concepts are repeated several times for a student passing through the program. The large number of economics courses offered in the program comes, however, at the cost of eliminating many possible general education courses. Including a richer general education program, however, would have only shifted the shortage of professors to other disciplines.

The social-political environment of learning has also undergone some basic changes in the post—cultural revolutionary years. Depoliticization of the highly politicized students in the major universities and the overt imposition of a state ideology on the educational system are the most fundamental changes. When the universities were reopened in 1984, there was an extensive ideological cleansing (paksazi) of the students and professors. The professors who were critics of the regime, or were tagged as “non-Islamic,” were retired or expelled. The students who were recognized as political activists were expelled or did not return to the university for the fear of persecution. Those who returned were required to pledge allegiance to the Islamic Republic and to affirm that they had not, and would not, engage in an activities against the state. New students are required to pass an “ideological test” as a part of the general university entrance examination. Moreover, 40 percent of the entering students are chosen from the sons and daughters of the martyrs of the war (with the Iranian Kurds and with Iraq), veterans of the war, and the members of various Islamic organizations. In this way, an element of ideological control is introduced into the classroom. Deviations by the instructor or students from what the “Islamic students” consider to be an Islamic or revolutionary view are dealt with by those “committed students” in the class and followed up by the formal and informal networks of ideological police in each university and even in each department. The network of Islamic Students Associations and the Office of University Crusade (Daftar-e Jehad-e Daneshgahi), which are parts of the formal structure of university administration, are the main elements of ideological control in the university system. In this way, a new orthodoxy—combining the Islamic world view, excluding its radical interpretations, and mainstream economics—reigns. Students and the faculty have both moved toward economic techniques rather than analysis. The depoliticized and technocentric economic education can be viewed as a form of passive resistance to the effort of the Islamic Re public to promote political and ideological indoctrination as the explicit mission of the educational system.