A Disputed Utopia

Islamic Economics in Revolutionary Iran

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of the discourse on Islamic economics in the Iranian intellectual arena immediately before the 1979 revolution. The evolution of this discourse in the Iranian setting is of special interest to students of social movements and Islam for two main reasons. First, Iran’s brand of Islamic economics has been more radical than those versions of it which appeared in other countries of the Muslim world. Second, the 1979 revolution in Iran provided forceful momentum for the establishment of an Islamic social order by a state that declared itself Islamic. However, due to a multiplicity of interpretations, defining an Islamic economic system proved to be a formidable task for Iran’s Islamists. The article examines a variety of Islamist approaches to the issue of the social relations of production in revolutionary Iran. It contends that despite their religious rhetoric and their general commitment to an Islamic social order, the ideas put forward by Iran’s Islamists remained wedded to and embedded in secular economic discourses. However, Islamic jurisprudence imposed some definite restrictions upon the legality of radical definitions of a social order. This article shows how Khomeini and other populist leaders of the Islamic Republic, riding strong on the waves of a popular revolution, were eventually overcome by conservative advocates of Islamic tradition and Laissez Faire economics, who preferred to change the focus of Islamist mobilization of society from economic justice to cultural purity.