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Islamization of Economics in Iranian Universities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Sohrab Behdad
Sohrab Behdad
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Denison University, Granville, Ohio, 43023, U.S.A. Email: behdad@cc.denison.edu.
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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's Fadaʾian 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.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , May 1995 , pp. 193 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

NOTES

Author's note: An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, 12–14 November 1993, Research Triangle, North Carolina. I wish to acknowledge the help of many friends in Iran who provided me with the material for this paper. I am also thankful to Bahram Tavakolian for his valuable comments and corrections, and to the anonymous referees and to Professor Leila Fawaz for their insightful suggestions. The views and the remaining errors are mine. This study has been supported by an R. C. Good Grant from Denison University.

1 See Kayhān, 17 04 1980Google Scholar.

2 See ibid., and Kayhān, 19 04 1980Google Scholar.

3 Kayhān, 22 04 1980Google Scholar.

4 See ibid., for the list of dead and injured.

5 On 13 June 1980, Ayatollah Khomeini appointed the members of the Cultural Revolutionary Council.

6 Kayhān, 30 11 1981Google Scholar.

7 This book was translated in two volumes by Pirnia, Ḥuseīn as Eqteṣād (Tehran: Bungāh-e Tarjumeh va Nashr-e Ketāb, 1964)Google Scholar. Pirnia also translated Allen's, R. G. D.Mathematical Analysis for Economists (London: Macmillan, 1947Google Scholar) under the title Riyāżīyyat-e Taḥlīlī baray-e Eqteṣād (Tehran: Muʾasseseh-ye Taḥqīqāt-e Eqteṣādi, Dāneshkadeh-ye Ḥuqūq va ʿUlūm-e Sīyasī va Eqteṣādi, 1964)Google Scholar. The publication of these books was funded by the Plan and Budget Organization.

8 Only a small section of volume one of Capital was translated into Persian by Iraj Eskandari. Some of the short selections of Marx's writings were translated abroad. These translations were not, however, available in Iran, and when they became available after the revolution they were hardly useful because of their inaccuracy and awkward Persian prose and terminology. I must note that translations of the non-Marxist classical literature in economics also were not available in Iran. If the absence of translations of economic classics, such as works of David Ricardo and Alfred Marshall, indicated low interest in this literature, this was not the case for classics of Marxism. There was a widespread curiosity about this literature among Iranian intellectuals.

9 Among these were Sarmayedarī Chīst?, ed. Nomani, Farhad (including articles by LangeE. K. Hunt, Oskar E. K. Hunt, Oskar, and Dobb, Maurice) (Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Nemuneh, 1973)Google Scholar; and idem, Eqteṣād-e Sīyasī-e Tuseʿehnayaftegī va Rushd (including articles by Paul Baran, Maurice Dobb, Oskar Lange, and Nomani, Farhad) (Tehran: Amīr Kabīr, 1975Google Scholar). Nomani (with Manuchehr Sanajiyan) also translated Cornforth, Maurice, Dialectical Materialism: An Introduction: Theory of Knowledge (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1963Google Scholar) as Naẓarīyyeh-ye Shenakht (Tehran: Amīr Kabīr, 1978Google Scholar).

10 Afanasyev, Lev A. et al. , Political Economy of Capitalism (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), translated by Zarafshān, Naṣer as Eqteṣād-e Siyasi (1976)Google Scholar. Other bibliographical notes of this translation are not available to me because the book is banned in Iran, and I have not been able to locate a copy of this Persian translation in the United States.

11 Translators and publishers had adopted the practice of not specifying the full identity of the original source as a means of confronting censorship. In some cases translators would alter the name of an author to mislead the censorship authorities; therefore, censorship officials could not rely on their list of banned foreign authors or publishers, and had to examine the actual text. Because the examination of the theoretical content of a book required a high level of expertise, which the censorship officer did not possess, many books would escape their attention. They, however, would recall a book when they noticed the enthusiasm with which it was received in certain quarters.

12 See Mahdi, Ali Akbar and Lahsaeizadeh, Abdolali, Sociology in Iran (Bethesda, Md.: Jahan Books, 1992), 61–69Google Scholar. For example, many Iranian university students were familiar with Aryanpūr, Amir Ḥusein, Zamīneh-ye Jameʿehshenāsī (Tehran: Ketāb-e Jībī, 1973Google Scholar), which they viewed as a Marxist textbook in sociology.

13 The limitation on the amount of courses offered in statistics, econometrics, and mathematical economics was imposed by the shortage of professors who could teach these subjects. The majority of senior professors had little background in these areas. Besides, teaching mathematical subjects to these students—who were very competent in mathematics and were constantly engaged in a game of “let's get the teacher”—was especially challenging.

14 The extent of intellectual engagement in extracurricular literature was clearly a function of the degree of political activism of students. Thus, although my statement is true about the majority of economics students at the Faculty of Economics of Tehran University, it is not necessarily true of economics students from all universities or technical colleges. However, the engineering students were well known both for their political activism and their extensive intellectual engagement in the literature of political economy and social criticism.

15 This conference was organized by King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah. I was one of the three economists from Iran. The proceedings of the conference is published as Studies in Islamic Economics, ed. Ahmad, Khursud (Leicester, Eng.: The Islamic Foundation, 1980)Google Scholar.

16 Among these are the numerous publications of Ḥasan Tavānāyān-Fard. See, for example, Tavānāyān-Fard, Ḥasan, Beytulmdāl, Bānkdāri Dar Eslām (Tehran: Mīlād, 1978)Google Scholar; idem, Eqteṣād-e Ejtemāʿī, Hamrah ba Bardashti az Eqteṣād-e Ejtemaʿī Eslām (Tehran: Mīlād, 1978)Google Scholar; idem, Teʾurī-ye Arzesh-e Kār (Tehran: Azādeh, 1979)Google Scholar; and idem, Bayānī Sadeh az Eqteṣād-e Jadīd (Tehran, Azādeh, 1979)Google Scholar.

17 Shariati, Ali, Marxism and Other Western Fallacies: An Islamic Critique (Ensān, Marksīzm va Eslām [Qum, 1977]), trans. Campbell, R. (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1980), 73Google Scholar; and idem, Tārīkh va Shenākht-e Adyān, vol. 1, Majmūʿeh-e Āsār (Tehran: Sherkat-e Sehamī-ye Enteshār, 1981), 7, 14Google Scholar.

18 Shariati, Ali, On the Sociology of Islam, trans. Algar, Hamid (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1979), 97–98Google Scholar.

19 Shariati, , On the Sociology of Islam, 98–114Google Scholar. On Shariati and Marxism, see also Abrahamian, Ervand, The Iranian Mojahedin (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), 113–18Google Scholar; and Dabashi, Hamid, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: New York University Press, 1993), 135–44Google Scholar. On Shariati's debate with the conservative clergy, Ayatollah Murtaza Mutahhari, see Behdad, Sohrab, “A Disputed Utopia: Islamic Economics in Revolutionary Iran,” Contemporary Studies in Society and History 36 (1994): 775–813CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Shariati, , Marxism and Other Western Fallacies, 63Google Scholar.

21 See, for example, Shariati, Ali, “Chegūneh Māndān,” in Majmuūʿeh-e Āsār (Daftar-e Tadvīn va Enteshār-e Āsār-e Brādar-e Shahīd Duktur ʿAlī Shariʿati dar Urupā, n.d. ca. 1978), 2:50–53Google Scholar.

22 Algar, Hamid in his preface to Shariati's Marxism and Other Western Fallacies (p. 13) suggests that these notes were published in Kayhān without Shariati's consentGoogle Scholar.

23 Shariati, , Tārikh va Shenākht-e Adyān, 2:25Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., 39; and Shariati, , On the Sociology of Islam, 100Google Scholar.

25 Īran, Mujahedīn-e Khalq-e, Shenākht (Metuduluzhī), ldeʾuluzhī, pt. 1 (n.p.: Mujāhedīn-e Kalq-e Īrān, September/October 1972)Google Scholar.

26 See, for example, Mujahedīn, , Shenākht, 10Google Scholar; idem, Tabīn-e Jahān: Qayaʿed va mafhūm-e Takāmul; Āmūzeshhā-ye ldeʾuluzhik) (n.p.: Enteshārāt-e Sāzmān-e Mujāhedīn-e Khalq-e Īrān, 1980), 9:11–14Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., 18.

28 Mujahedīn, , Tabyin-e Jahān, 6:16–17Google Scholar.

29 Asgarīzadeh, Mahmūd, Eqteṣād beh Zabān-e Sādeh (n.p., n.d. ca. 1971)Google Scholar.

30 From Pickthall, Mohammed Marmaduke, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, An Explanatory Translation (New York: The New American Library, n.d.)Google Scholar.

31 Ḥabībullah Paydār (Peyman), BardāshthāḤʾi dar Bāreh-ye Mālekiyyat, Sarmāyeh va Kār az Didgāh-e Eslām (n.p.: Daftar-e Nashr-e Eslamī, n.d. ca. 1979). Peyman wrote under the pen name of Ḥabībullah PaydārGoogle Scholar.

32 Vardasebi, Abūzar, Jazmīyyat-e falsafeh-ye ḥezbī (Tehran: Qalam, 1979), 145–47Google Scholar.

33 Paydār, Bardāshthāʾi 32Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., 66.

35 Ibid., 75–77.

36 Ibid., 79.

37 Ibid., 137–38, 273

38 Ṣadr, Seyyed Muḥammad Bāqir, Eqteṣād-e Mā (Persian translation of Iqtiṣāadunā [Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1961]), vol. 1, trans. Bujnurdī, Muḥammad Kāẓem MūsavīGoogle Scholar (n.p.: Enteshārāt-e Eslāmī, 1971), vol. 2, trans. Esphbudī, ʿA. (Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Eslāmī, 1978)Google Scholar.

39 Ibid., 1:404.

40 Ibid., 1:404–5.

41 Ibid., 1:405.

42 Ibid., 1:354. For a detailed study of Ṣadr's conception of an Islamic economic order, see Behdad, Sohrab, “Property Rights in Contemporary Islamic Economic Thought: A Critical Perspective,” Review of Social Economy Al (Summer 1989): 185–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, “A Disputed Utopia.”

43 Ṣadr, , Eqteṣād-e Mā, 2:62–63Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., 2:357–63.

45 Ibid., 2:341.

46 Ibid., 2:230–31.

47 Ibid., 2:232–33.

48 Ibid., 2:235.

49 Hamkārī-ye, Daftar-eDāneshgāh, Ḥawzeh va (CCSU), Darāmadī bar Eqteṣād-e Eslāmī (n.p.: Salmān-e Fārsi, 1984)Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., 53.

51 Ibid., 81.

52 ibid., 82.

53 ibid., 90.

54 Banīsadr, Abulḥasan, Eqteṣād-e Tawḥīdī (n.p., 02 1979), ixGoogle Scholar.

55 Ibid.

56 CCSU, Darāmadī bar Eqteṣād-e Eslāmī, 52Google Scholar.

57 Paydār, , Bārdāshthāʾī, 75–79Google Scholar.

58 CCSU, Darāmadī bar Eqteṣād-e Eslāmi, 274Google Scholar.

59 Ibid., 143–44.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid., 343, 353–55.

62 Ibid., 186–87,274.

63 ibid., 286, 308, 353.

64 Ministry of Culture and Higher Education, 202nd Session of the High Council of Planning, “Memorandum” (22 12 1991), 3Google Scholar.

65 Ibid., 43, 51.

66 See, for example, Tutūnchlyān, Iraj, Teʾurī -ye Taqaza va Taḥlīl-e Eqṭeṣādī-ye Enfāq (Tehran: Markaz-e Eṭelaʿat-e Fannī-ye Iran, 1984–1985)Google Scholar. This textbook in microtheory attempts to impose the market behavior deduced from Islamic teachings on consumer choice and utility maximization. The main point of the book is that charity (enfāq) of the Muslims in God's way enters their utility maximization decision. See also Bana-Razavī, Mehdi, Tarh-e Taḥlīlī-ye Eqteṣād-e Eslämī (Mashhad: Enteshārāt-e Āstān-e Quds-e Rażavī, 1988)Google Scholar. This book attempts to present a system theory framework for policy analysis in an Islamic economy.

67 Ministry of Culture and Higher Education, “Memorandum,” 75Google Scholar.

68 I owe this observation to Husein Yaghubī, who in the mid-1970s, suggested that a Ph.D. is equivalent to a two-bedroom apartment in Tehran. They both have the same rate of return. The Yaghubi Index seems to have held true in spite of the revolutionary changes.

69 The students who gain entrance into the university through the highly competitive national examination and those who enter because of their family status or political position form a highly uneven distribution of learning abilities in the university classrooms; see Habibi, Nader, “Allocation of Educational Opportunities in the Islamic Republic of Iran: A Case Study in Political Screening of Human Capital,” Iranian Studies 22, 4 (1989): 19–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.