Islamic-neoclassical Economy
In the early times of 1979 revolution Ayatollah Khomeini declared that what mattered was Islam and not the economy. In one of his comments, he dismissed the concerns of his first prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, about the economy by simply noting that "Economics is for donkeys!" However Khomeini in many occasions advised his followers about justice and giving priority to the rights of the deprived and the oppressed members of the community.
"Association of the Lecturers of Qom's Seminaries," or ALQRS (Jame'eh-ye Modarresin-e Howzeh-ye 'Elmiyeh-ye Qom), published their authenticated version of Islamic economy in 1984. It was based on traditional interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence, which the ALQRS find compatible with the market system and neoclassical economics. They emphasize economic growth against social equity and declare the quest for profit as a legitimate Islamic motive. According to ALQRS, attaining "maximum welfare" in a neoclassical sense is the aim of an Islamic economic system. However, the system must establish the limits of individual rights. In accordance with this ideological-methodological manifesto of the ALQRS, in February 1984, the council for cultural revolution proposed a national curriculum for economics for all Iranian Universities.
The concept of "Islamic economics" appeared as a rainbow on the revolutionary horizon and disappeared soon after the revolutionary heat dissipated (the end of 1980s and after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini). It disappeared from Iranian political discourse for fifteen years. In the June 2005 presidential elections, neither the populist-fundamentalist winning candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, nor any of his reformist or conservative opponents said a word about Islamic economy. However, after the establishment of Ahmadinejad's government, his neoconservative team opened the closed file of Islamic economy. For instance, Vice-President Parviz Davoudi said in 2006:
- "On the economic field, we are dutybound to implement an Islamic economy and not a capitalistic economy. It is a false image to think that we will make equations and attitudes based on those in a capitalistic system".
Factional conflict dominated Iranian economic politics under the Ayatollah Khomeini from 1979 to 1989. The two principal factions were a statist-reformist group that favored state control of the economy and a conservative group that favored the private sector. Both factions claimed Khomeini's support, but by 1987, he clearly had sided with the statist-reformists because he believed state capitalism to be the best way of heading off any threat to Islam. Khomeini's death on 3 June 1989 left the factions without their source of legitimation.
Read more about this topic: Islamic Fundamentalism In Iran
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