National Budget in the Pocket of Religious Institutions

The budget is a tangible and concrete document detailing the distribution of national revenues; it is a high-level document indicating how the authorities perceive priorities and the manner of spending public revenues, in addition to how these revenue sources are secured and realized. In the Islamic Republic, the affirmative and sympathetic approach of the government towards religious and religious-like institutions is an old and well-known situation. The list of religious, semi-religious, and promotional institutions benefiting from national revenues is not short. The government has an ideological theme and seeks to support and replicate its preferred interpretation; what better opportunity is there to explain and celebrate the 'absolute guardianship of the jurist' than through religious institutions? From this perspective, for example, in the proposed budget by the government and approved by the parliament, independent lines have been defined for institutions and the following lines: Center for the Services of Religious Seminaries, Supreme Council of Religious Seminaries, Office of Islamic Propaganda of Qom Seminary, Planning Council for the Management of Religious Seminaries of Khorasan, Policy Council of Women's Religious Seminaries, Coordination Council of Islamic Propaganda, Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute, Organization for Islamic Culture and Communications (with subsidiaries such as: World Assembly for Proximity of Islamic Schools, World Assembly of Ahl al-Bayt, Ahl al-Bayt University, Islamic Schools University). In addition to these, one must mention the allocation of budget to the Coordination Council of Islamic Propaganda, and the Islamic Propaganda Organization and its subsidiaries such as: Research and Cultural Institute of the Islamic Revolution, Islamic Encyclopedia Foundation, Research Institute of Culture and Thought of Islam, Policy Council of Friday Prayer Leaders, Center for Mosque Affairs, Prayer Establishment Headquarters, Center for Computer Research in Islamic Sciences, Islamic Jurisprudence Encyclopedia Institute, Artistic Field, Center for Islamic-Iranian Model of Progress. These institutions and organizations sometimes allocate several hundred billion tomans of the national budget to themselves, without any clear justification for their activities for Iran or even without taxpayers and citizens being informed about the details of their expenditures and the outcomes of their actions. Another example alongside the aforementioned cases is an institution called 'Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah'; an institution with a seminary identity that has a budget almost equivalent to that of Sharif University of Technology (about 270 billion tomans). Examining the organizational dimensions, statutes, and actions of this educational-propagandistic and ideological institution yields significant and thought-provoking results. The central power core, by tying the seminary to itself, increases its propagandists and defenders on one hand; on the other hand, it reduces the consequences of an independent seminary and clerics critical of the government and sympathetic to society; and on the other hand, it fabricates 'legitimacy' for itself, legitimacy that is not 'democratic' and does not arise from free, healthy, and fair elections. 'Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah' introduces its goal as 'expanding Islamic, human, and social sciences' and 'training pious, committed, and timely scholars, teachers, propagandists, translators, trainers, and managers'; an institution that claims to strive 'to explain, produce, and deepen Islamic thoughts and ideologies and to propagate and promote pure Muhammadan Islam.' According to the claim of the director of this institution, more than 80,000 students from 122 nationalities have been educated and trained under it. The educational fields and courses of Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah range from jurisprudence and hadith to philosophy, theology, Islamic history, law, psychology, economics, sociology, banking, and management, from associate degrees to PhDs and ijtihad. According to the data of this institution, more than 3,500 faculty members and full-time and part-time professors are working in 150 scientific groups in this institution. The central organization of Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah is located in Qom, but about 170 affiliated and connected educational and research units are located in Iran and more than 60 countries around the world (including South Africa, Germany, Indonesia, England, Uganda, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Thailand, Denmark, Japan, Sweden, Senegal, the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Cameroon, Gambia, Norway, Nigeria, and India). According to the statutes of this institution, a maximum of 20% of its students can be Iranian. The publications of this institution are translated and printed in addition to Persian, in Arabic, English, French, German, Russian, Urdu, Azerbaijani, Turkish, Tajik, and more. This institution has so far organized more than 7,000 cultural camps, 5,000 cultural and religious ceremonies, 18 international Quran and hadith Olympiads, 100 Olympiad and sports competitions, and has been responsible for launching 4,000 websites and blogs and publishing 50 publications in more than 40 languages. The director of this institution claims that since 2015, they have published one book every day in 30 living languages of the world. Some of the facilities and services provided by this institution to students include: payment of educational assistance (tuition), housing assistance and interest-free loans, provision of dormitories, health and medical services for students, practical and skill training for the spouses and children of students, special education for the families of students, and organizing recreational-pilgrimage camps. The Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution approved the statutes of this institution in 1999; a statute that states: 'Its degree, regardless of the level it is issued, is recognized by the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology.' The allocation of government budget to this institution occurs while Article 4 of its statutes emphasizes that Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah 'has a public, non-governmental, and non-profit nature and enjoys financial, administrative, and employment independence.' Ironically, this institution considers itself 'non-governmental' and 'independent' on one hand, and on the other hand, its statutes emphasize that the community has an independent line in the budget law and all credits paid to the community are considered 'assistance' and are accounted as definite expenses. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and the financial independence of the seminary. In addition to what has been mentioned, and based on the emphasis of the statutes of Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah, 'the supreme presidency of the community is held by the jurist in charge of the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the approval of the statutes, the election of the board members, the appointment and dismissal of the president of the community, the provision of fundamental guidelines, and the dissolution of the community are carried out by him.' It should be noted that this institution was formed by merging 'the Organization of Religious Seminaries and Schools Abroad' and 'the Global Center for Islamic Sciences,' and Alireza Arafi has been appointed by the Supreme Leader to lead it. Ayatollah Khamenei once spoke of 'the necessity of financial independence of religious seminaries' and criticized the medieval church or even the Sunni clergy and defended 'seminaries independent of the government in Shi'ism.' However, in recent years and during his leadership in the Islamic Republic, he emphasizes that 'the clergy must be in a position to guard and defend the system; this should never be forgotten. Today, no factor should be able to separate the Shiite clergy from defending the Islamic Republic.' Although he believes that 'religious seminaries have always been independent throughout history,' he emphasizes: 'The independence of seminaries should not be interpreted as a lack of support from the system for the seminary and the seminary for the system; some want this. Some want to cut the relationship between the seminary and the system in the name of independence; this cannot happen. The system owes the seminary; it must help the seminaries.' From this perspective, he occupies the position of the first person in Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah or recommends and implements the injection of budget and credit to various religious institutions in different ways. Regarding the budget for the seminary, it is very unlikely that budgetary waste (such as that mentioned above) in the post-JCPOA era and Iran's economic crisis and the government's plight to secure revenue can justify any of this for the majority of Iranians. The allocation of budget to religious institutions occurs while, for example, more than 30% of the country's schools need reconstruction and modernization or, as another example, in the past year alone, more than 681,000 workers were laid off and unemployed due to workforce adjustments or the end of temporary contracts. Spending from the public budget for institutions like Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah is a prominent example of the consequences of the merger of 'the institution of religion' and 'the institution of government.' The core of power in the Islamic Republic considers itself obligated to spend on the promotion of a religious interpretation and relies on the reproduction and continuity of its non-democratic authority, in addition to weapons, repression, and censorship, on the dissemination and replication of its official ideology. In other words, the central power core, by tying the seminary to itself, increases its propagandists and defenders on one hand; on the other hand, it reduces the consequences of an independent seminary and clerics critical of the government and sympathetic to society; and on the other hand, it fabricates 'legitimacy' for itself, legitimacy that is not 'democratic' and does not arise from free, healthy, and fair elections. Despite all this, and despite all the government's efforts to tie the seminaries to the ruling power, there are significant and notable strands of independence-seeking among clerics and students in Iran's seminaries.