The object of 'written Islamic thought' is to present an appropriate model by which to organize and sort out Islamic perspectives concerning various aspects of human life such as economy, politics, arts, education, Islamic bioethics etc.
As reported by International Quran News Agency (IQNA), speaking about the birth of the Holy Prophet (pbuh), in a sitting held Wednesday 16 of February to discuss 'written Islamic thought', Ayatollah Mahdi Hadavi Tehrani said, "I am very pleased to be at the Quranic News Agency Center on this day which coincides with the birthday of the Holy Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him and his household. It is a matter of great happiness to see that computer-related sciences have made progress in Iran. When I was in Europe and uploading answers to questions through "EARN" network, people in Iran knew nothing about the internet. Even Islamic seminary teachers and lecturers did not have any information in this regard. However, we are glad to see that the virtual atmosphere has now developed and made such progress in Iran."
Speaking about the history of 'written Islamic thought', member of Supreme Council of Ahlul-Bayt (a.s.) Worldly Assembly said, "The history of 'written Islamic thought' and its relationship with human sciences date back to 1989 when a conference dubbed in as "Sciences and Quranic Concepts" was held to discuss the relationship between the Quran and sciences. Ayatollah Subhani, Ayatollah Ma'arefat, Ayatollah Asefi and I as the faculty members of this conference each undertook the supervision of different independent scientific commissions. The commission which I headed was "The Society and Economy from the Perspective of the Quran". Efforts were made to obtain the Quran's outlook on economy. Therefore, with this approach, my colleagues worked out some questions concerning economy-related themes and with those questions in mind they referred to the Quran and studied it entirely to find out answers to their own questions."
"It is worth contemplation that we had to have our own self-created questions to refer to the Quran to find out their answers because if we did not have those questions, it was likely that we would fail to extract a great many of those points and hints from the Quran. In other words, the Quran is replete with points that have been overlooked over the ages due to the fact that the people have not been facing various questions to turn to the Quran to find out appropriate answers to them," Ayatollah Hadavi Tehran was quoted as saying.
He further added, "The worked-out questions were studied over and over. Eventually, we extracted a number of economy-related verses from the Quran. Once we collected the verses, we noticed that we had a great deal of information on various economic related issues, and we were faced with the difficulty how to handle them. Considering our subject which was "Society and economy from the perspective of the Quran", what came to our mind in the first place was to use Baqir Sadr's 'Our Economy' as a model."
Ayatollah Hadavi Tehrani said that efforts were made to sort out the verses on the basis of Baqir Sadr's 'Our Economy'. However, he said that some verses were left out as they could not be applied to "Our Economy", that is, they had no relationship with Martyr Baqir Sadr's economic model. In other words, those verses were extraneous to the model introduced by the book.
Speaking on the how-about of the formation of the theory of 'written Islamic thought', head of Fiqh and Law Group of the Council for Reviewing Humanities Text Books in the Ministry of Sciences, Research and Technology said: "Considering what I said earlier, we noticed a theoretic vacuum in the sense that we felt we needed a comprehensive model by which to sort out and classify the various pieces of information which we obtained from Islam into the said model and set up a relationship between them. It was in such a circumstance that the theory of 'written Islamic thought' came into being. The first narration of this theory was presented on the sideline of this meeting and this model was introduced through a lengthy article. In the year 2009, this article was published in the form of an independent book entitled "The General Structure of the Islamic Economic System in the Quran".
Member of the Board of Trustees of the Iranian Institute of Philosophy further added, "We had detailed discussions concerning this theory with prominent religious and scientific figures. These discussions eventually led to a change in the form of this theory. Hence, I presented the second narration of this theory under "Written Islamic Thought in Islam" in a conference entitled "Time and Place in Ijtihad according to Imam Khomeini (r.a)" which was held by Office for Printing and Publication of Imam Khomeini's Works. It was printed in 1995 in the form of an article and its translations in Arabic and Farsi were published in different parts of the world."
"Since we had reached a model which could be applied to different areas, efforts were made to apply this theory to different areas. For example, we applied it to arts, politics and education, and in a conference which was held on visual arts we presented an article titled "Islam's arts system". The article which was chosen as the best of articles presented in that conference demonstrated this theory's applicability to different fields," he added.
Lecturer at the kharij (postgraduate) level of Fiqh and legal theories noted, "Since this theory has originally stemmed from economy, different dissertation articles and theses at M.A. and doctoral levels have been written in this regard. After introducing some changes in this theory that were published in a book titled "Wilayat-e Faqih", we applied this theory to political areas. However, overtime this theory gained new narrations which were explained in The Theological Foundations of Ijtihad". When this book was published, it was introduced as the yearbook. As some of our friends said, a new science was added to the list of Islamic sciences because before the publication of this book, no one knew anything about theological foundations in Ijtihad."
"We applied this theory for a second time to the economic domain," he added. "The book 'The Economic School and System of Islam' is the outcome of ten years' continuous struggle in economic related fields. This book includes an account of the application of written thought within the economic domain. In this book, it has been endeavored to present a new discussion, albeit after Martyr Baqir Sadr's book which is the main source of Islamic economy."
Ayatollah Hadavi Tehrani further noted that the said theory had been applied to management also in the sense that in the sideline of the third development program of the country, the state was commissioned to teach Imam Khomeini's management to country managers. A huge research project was designed for this purpose. With reliance on this same written thought, a number of prominent management experts of the country referred to Imam Khomeini's sirah (biography/life story). Consequently, they compiled a series of their findings and achievements in 15 volumes. In fact, these books were the outcome of the application of this theory to Imam Khomeini's management and the centrality of his thought.
Speaking about the aims of the said theory, he said: Our aim of this theory is to present a model by which to introduce Islamic perspectives concerning various domains of human life. If for example a discussion is raised about economy, politics, arts, education and Islam's bioethics, we can use the theory to handle and manage it. The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran lays great stress on this theory; he maintains that more work needs to be done on that theory and on various related areas.
Office of Ayatollah Mahdi Hadavi Tehrani
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Related link: International Quran News Agency (IQNA)