“Men persist only with the help, of property. The only way to property is through cultivation. The only way to cultivation is through justice.”[1] “Injustice brings about the ruin of civilization.”[2]
The streets of Iran
The emotional outpouring that characterize religious festivals in particular, the martyrdom days of important shi’ah saints, are in part convectional, but they are also massive. Men and women weep and moan, smite their foreheads, and in rhythmical unison, beat their chests.[3] Some observers think that these expressions of emotion have social psychological importance, that they are releases of frustrated and pessimistic feelings that are continually engendered by the ethos of insecurity.
The Shi’ite abandon that have flourished most especially in the Persian state for centuries as are other sectarian practices in other parts of the Moslem world, denotes the irreparable divide of the Moslem world over the political question of the caliphate which illustrates a characteristic of Islam, that every Moslem thinks of himself as living in a theocracy, although Islam itself a nomocracy, denounces in strong terms the premises upon which theocracy now reigns in the Moslem world.
The Qur’an recognizes man as a being at once rational, volitional, acquisitive, and ethical – a man completely living in liberty, acting to provide for his existence without sacrificing his moral sensibilities.[4] Thus the Qur’an insists on the harmony of man’s spiritual (liberty) and material (economic) interests, embedded in the most important and comprehensive concept of Islam at the practical level, the shari’ah.
However, because of the diversion from strict Islamic injunctions foretold by the prophet Mohammed (SAW)[5], the gradual devolution of Islamic economic and spiritual practice away from the shari’ah may as well account for why the Moslem world declined in to intellectual darkness and economic stagnation.
Today, economies are blossoming in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to mention a few. But the circumstances that lead to the emergence of these economies and the continued deadlock in other Islamic nations to device a means to economic boom, is readily found in their mix of freedom and economic policies.
In ancient Moslem world, freedom denotes property. Ibn Khaldoun surmises, that “whoever takes someone’s property, or uses him for forced labor…does injustice to that particular person.”[6] Thus two aspects of the ethos of insecurity, fatalism and evasive deference to authority as characterized in Iranian culture many denote the lack of freedom either from the state or some external powers, which are identified as inconducive to individual and institutional innovations[7].
There is only one effective method for government to increase its revenues, and that is “through equitable treatment of people and regard for them”[8] so that “they have the incentive to make their capital bear fruit and grow.”[9] When the equitable treatment lacks, the state is certainly tilted towards feudalism, one way or the other. The misconception of this, tarnished the efforts of Iran Iraq Lebanon Syria
Societies are complex orders[14]. They require freedom because the information and knowledge that make them work can never be amassed by a central authority. Freedom to the process of achieving spontaneous order (in this case, stable economies) in society because we do not know in advance which rules will work, because liberty is essential to the trial-and-error process, and because the creative powers of man can only be expressed in a society in which power and knowledge are widely dispersed[15] When knowledge is determined by the existence of power, a feudalist regime would subsequently crush the aims of the Qur’an, principled in the Shari’ah.[16]
The hum of commerce eases the path of social cooperation in a free society, in part because it offers man opportunities that are simply not available when acting alone or in a state of war of all against all. Security and prosperity are interdependent and in free societies far surpasses those of nations where conflict marks difference of faith.[17]
Such celebrations like the anniversary of Ruhollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution of 1979 usually go unnoticed in nations like Americas Israel
Iran’s problem however, remains its foreign policies that have remained cold, rater towards the countries that seem to have the will power to help it out of its economic shambles, that have brought the whole system to near collapse since the revolution of 1979. One thing remains that Iran Middle East and must therefore rubbish the efforts of any other, trying to meddle.[19] However stiff Iran
At night in the city of Esfahan Persia
All these despite the restriction of Iran’s powerful clerics and however much they may rail against the cultural invasion of the US and its acolytes – they say – on curbing the spread of Islam, the prime worry remains economic. Prior to the stiffer sanctions in October this year, the investment pinch from earlier sanctions is greatly being felt across the country: the government now offers cash for priority jobs, such as building oil refineries. All dollar exchanges, including small transfers for private individuals have become extremely complicated and it is very hard to use a credit card to buy online from inside Iran.[21]
The immunity of Mecca
© 2008 Atlas Economic Research Foundation
My entry for the Ibn Khaldoun Essay Contest for 2007.
[1] Ibn Khaldoun 1967, v. I, p. 64.
[2] Ibn Khaldoun 1967, v. II, p. 103
[3] Iran
[4] Ahmad I. A. 1996, An Islamic Perspective on the Wealth of Nations. Minaret of Freedom Preprint Series 96-4.
[5] Prophet Mohammed is said to have foretold, that the first generation of Moslems adhere most closely to the principles of the religion and each successive generation drifts farther from it.
[6] Ibn Khaldoun 1967, v. II, p. 107.
[7] The Islamic idea that property is a consequence of development does not differ from – and anticipates – Locke’s notion that use establishes the right of property. Thus, when lands are conquered, shared and used, it automatically becomes the property of the occupant. Thus property is strictly viewed in terms of individual, communal and state basis. Only through zealous protection of the property rights of the people (both their private property and the environment) can society spontaneously productive economies.
[8] Ibid., p. 103.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Iran
[11] Iraq Iraq
[12] Lebanon
[13] Syria Syria
[14] Nigel Ashford. The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty
[15] Ibid.
[16] Life in a free society can then be hard because it will force individuals to adjust to the needs of others. The free society works because it coordinates conflicting desires by creating incentives for people to satisfy those of others. This is the opposite of a state in which one can only achieve one’s aims at the expense of others.
[17] Ibid.
[18] The Economist. Volume 382 Number 8515. p.25
[19] It opposes the United State Israel Persian Gulf , and the latter as part of its stance and support for Palestine Iran Afghanistan
[20] A birth boom was encouraged during the first years of the Islamic revolution to provide a steady flow of young martyrs for the eight year war with Iraq
[21] As a result, Iran Dubai
[22] Ibn Khaldoun in his magnum opus – the Muqaddimah, says “in the attempt to earn the increase of capital that constitutes profit, it is unavoidable that one’s capital gets in to the hands of traders” and “all this causes the merchant a great deal of trouble… if he is not afraid of quarrels, knows how to settle an account, and is always willing to enter in to a dispute…he stands a better chance of being treated fairly…” Ibn Khaldoun, Wali ad-Din 1967, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, Franz Rosenthal, trans. (Princeton : Princeton Univ. Press).
