Islamic Economics in Contemporary Iran: Is It Rooted in the Writings of Medieval Iranian Scholars?

Beginning with the writings of Pakistani Islamic scholar Mamdudi (1903-1979), Egyptian Islamic activist Seyyed Qutb (1906-1966), and Iraqi Shiite cleric M.B. Sadr (1931-1980), a branch of Islamic thought called Islamic economics emerged. Soon these founders were joined by various devoted Muslim writers-usually Sunnis and trained economists-from various Muslim countries, as an attempt to create an Islamic alternative to secular Western economics.
         The arrival of Islamic economics in Iran was rather different-it arrived later, the original writers usually included theologians rather than trained economists, and instead of responding to western secular economics, the issues raised-while still reflecting the Quran and other sources of Shiite Islamic Jurisprudence-provided responses to economic issues raised by very influential Iranian Marxists.
Although ignored by historians of economics until recently, medieval Muslim scholars, long before the rise of modern economics in the West, contributed immensely to the history of economics, often anticipating and influencing modern economics (reflecting the fact that Islam, having affinity with various capitalist institutions, had mercantile roots, and that medieval Muslims created a rudimental form of capitalism). These contributions, although still in concert with the teachings of Islam, rather than being precursors to what is now called Islamic economics, were developments in economic science that influenced its further developments by Christian scholastics and others.
As I will demonstrate, many and the best of the medieval Muslim scholars were Persian speaking Iranians who usually wrote in Arabic. Three groups of medieval Iranian Muslim scholars contributed to economics-Muslim jurist/theologians like Ghazali, philosophers like Avicenna and Nasir Tusi, and the writers of Persian-inspired mirrors for princes like Kay Kavus and Nezam al-Mulk.