While we can accurately regard modern economics as predominantly a Western social science, and cannot ignore the contributions of ancient Greeks to this science, we should by no means ignore the contributions of non-Western civilizations to this old branch of social thought.

This is particularly true of medieval Muslims in general and medieval Persian-speaking (Iranian) scholars in particular. As this chapter will demonstrate, medieval Persian scholars contributed a great deal to the development of economics when few such ideas were being generated in Christian Europe.

This absence of economic analysis in medieval Europe, and a lack of emphasis on economic gain by medieval Christian Europeans, is evident in George O’Brien’s book on the economic aspect of medieval Europe. Quoting his contemporary French scholar Jourdain, who had studied the economic thought of numerous medieval European thinkers, O’Brien writes:

he carefully examined the work of Alcuin, Robanas, Mauras, Scouts, Erigenus, Hinkmar, Gerbert, St. Anselm, and Abeland — the greatest light of theology and philosophy in the early Middle Ages — without finding a single passage to suggest any of these authors suspected that the pursuit of riches, which they despised, occupied a sufficiently large place in the national as well as individual life to offer to the philosopher a subject fruitful in reflection and results.

(1920, 14)

Although modern Iranians have been rather active, contributing to both secular and Islamic economics, the contributions of medieval Iranians to the development of economics was tremendously more significant than those active at the present. As the works of medieval Persian scholars indicate, their understanding of economic processes was substantial. Persian-speaking Muslims anticipated many economic concepts discussed centuries later in Europe, and influenced Europeans as economic theorizing began to emerge in modern times. Although political economy as an independent branch of social thought is attributed to Adam Smith, and the first use of the term “political economy” is traced to the writings of French author Antonine Montcretein in 1615, medieval Persian philosopher/ethicist/astronomer Nasir Tusi discussed the need for such a science, the science of urban life, in his Nasirean Ethics, and provided a modern-sounding definition of economics.

After introducing three distinct groups of Iranian scholars in medieval times, this chapter will illustrate their contributions to different aspects of economics, and will demonstrate how they influenced European scholastics and perhaps other Europeans later. Then the contributions of modern Iranians to both secular and Islamic economics will be discussed.