Islamic Fundamentalism in Iran - Seminary-University Conflicts

Seminary-University Conflicts

See also: Iran's Cultural Revolution of 1980-1987

One of the main clarion calls raised within the geography of events known as the Cultural Revolution was the call for seminary-university unity. The original idea was a reconciliation between science and religion. In other words the meaning of seminary-university unity was a resolution of the historical battle between science and religion. Resolving this battle is a scholarly endeavour, not a political and practical one. However, after the revolution, since clerics came to rule over the country, the idea of seminary-university unity, which meant understanding between seminary teachers and academics, gradually turned into submission by academics to clerics and seminary teachers, and it lost its logical and scholarly meaning and took on a political and practical sense. Appointment of Abbasali Amid Zanjani as the only cleric president of University of Tehran in 27 December 2005 can be understood in the same line. Tehran University is the symbol of higher education in Iran. Abbasali Amid Zanjani hold no academic degree and was appointed by Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi, the minister of Science, Research, and Technology in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's cabinet.

There was a journal in 1980s, by the name of "University of Revolution" which used to include some material written by neofundamentalists. They wrote many articles to prove that science is not wild and without a homeland, that it is not the case that it recognises no geography, and that it is therefore possible for us to create "Islamic sciences."

In 2007, Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a well-known cleric, attacked the University people calling them the most indecent people. In April 2008, four leading clerics namely Abdollah Javadi Amoli, Ebrahim Amini, Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi and Mohammed Emami-Kashani criticized Iranian Universities, University students and Iranian Higher education system as being secular, non-Islamic, indecent and cheap.