The Iranian Revolution had spurred interest among many scholars, professionals and politicians, in learning more about the Shi'a Islam as it is practised in Iran. This is evident from the many books and articles that have been written or translated into English in the past few years.

Numerous books on jurisprudence, politics, and history of Shi'a Islam have appeared in translation. However, those on economics and ownership - by a Shi’a scholar - are visibly lacking. Our motivation in undertaking this rather difficult task of translating Taleqani's Islam and Ownership was the importance of this work as a socioeconomic document and the dearth of information on the subject, as well as our own personal interest in introducing the author - a prominent Shi'a scholar and a central figure in the Iranian Revolution - to the Western audience.

Islam and Ownership must be considered as one of Taleqani's major contributions to the understanding of Shi'a Islam and one of the few books written in recent years that deals exclusively with a topic traditionally subsumed as part of fiqh under the heading of mu’amalat or business law. Since ownership of natural resources is one of the major issues in economics, it is hoped that the publication of this volume would help shed light on the ownership system in Islam.

The English translation of this book is the first complete translation of Taleqani's major works into a foreign language. Two earlier attempts been made. One is an abridged version and hence incoherent translation of chapter seven of this volume1, and the other is an anthology of his writings that includes another rendition of the same chapter2. The later attempt is more of a commercial undertaking than a serious contribution towards understanding Taleqani's ideas and works.

The present translation is based upon the fourth and final Persian edition released in 1344 H (1965 AD). This particular work was revised thrice by the author. The first edition of only 72 pages was released in 1330 H (1954 AD). The second edition in 1333 H (1954 AD) comprised 104 pages. We were unsuccessful in finding a copy of the third edition. Taleqani intended to revise the fourth edition as well but he died before he could incorporate his latest opinions and ideas.

Taleqani wrote and worked under extremely difficult circumstances. As a political activist and popular religious figure, he was under constant surveillance by the secret police. For most of his life he was either in exile, under house arrest, or in prison. In fact, he began writing one of his major works, Patrovi as Qur'an (A Ray from the Qur'an) while serving time in Qasr prison. Some of the materials, especially quotations, in this volume are clearly written from memory or are the result of discussions with other prisoners.

In this translation we have attempted to correct the shortcomings that are obviously attributable to this misspelling of names, incorrect dates, etc. At the same time we have tried to remain faithful to the author's original tone and style. At times this proved to be difficult partly because of the different structures of the Persian and English, including the differences in syntax.

In Persian, particularly in writings on religious subjects, it is not uncommon to encounter long and repetitious sentences that reinforce the relationships between ideas. Moreover, Persian is not totally dependent on punctuations to clarify the meanings, so the use of the connective “and” to join already long sentences are not unusual. Although the introduction of punctuations into the Persian language in recent years by contemporary Iranian writers was meant to give some semblance or order, in practice it has proved to be confusing. Punctuation marks have not been fully integrated into the Persian grammar, and their usage therefore has not yet been standardized.

The misuse and abuse of punctuation in the Persian text was another source of difficulty. We had to re-edit a major portion of the original text to understand what the author really meant to say. In several instances we had to resort to a third and fourth opinion to resolve the difficulty.

The difficult circumstance under which Taleqani wrote is clearly reflected by a noticeable lack of adequate references. We were able to find and provide most references. But whenever this proved to be impossible, especially where a direct quotation from a foreign source was involved, we merely translated the Persian quotation.

The transliteration system used for this volume is a judicious mixture of two different systems used in the literature. This was necessary because Arabic words are pronounced differently in Persian. For certain Muslim names and Arabic terms that have become standard in the English language we used the more familiar transliteration.

The Persian transliteration follows the system used by Naser Sharify in his Cataloging of Persian Words (Chicago: American Library Association, 1959) and the Arabic follows the Library of Congress’ Cataloging Service (Bulletin 118, Summer, 1976). We hope this does not create confusion in the minds of the readers.

The Qur'anic quotations are taken from Marmaduke Pickthall’s transliteration, The Glorious Koran (Albany: State University of New York. 1976). Wherever Taleqani’s interpretation of a verse varies from Pickthall's, direct translation from the Persian has been attempted. The translation of Imam Ali’s sermons and sayings are adopted from Nahjul Balagha of Hazrat ‘Ali (Elmhurst: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, n.d.). Grammatical and editorial errors have been corrected wherever necessary. Verses from the Old and New Testaments have been lifted from The New American Bible Wichita: Catholic Bible Publishers, 1974-75). Notes followed by “(tr)” are those of the translators.

In the course of translating this volume over the past two years, we have found that we owe a debt of gratitude to various friends, colleagues and institutions.

Mr. Farhang Rajaee owes much to the encouragement he received from his friend, Professor Mohammad R. Ghanoonparvar. Had it not been for his support, Mr. Rajaee's participation in this project would not have gone beyond mere wishful thinking. Mr. Rajaee is also indebted to Mr. James Price who read the translation and gave valuable suggestions. Special thanks are due Professor A. A. Sachedina who made valuable contributions to the understanding and interpretation of difficult Islamic concepts in the book. Finally, thanks are due to the anonymous reader who made valuable observations and corrections on Mr. Rajaee's earlier draft of the translation

Mr. Ahmad Jabbari is indebted to Professor Robert Olson, who was a most meticulous critic during the preparation of the first draft of the earlier chapters, and provided much helpful advice. Thanks are due especially to John Green for his comments and corrections of parts of the translation and to Dr. Yashoda N. Singh who provided editorial assistance and guidance during the final stage of manuscript preparation. Barbara Galik, the reference librarian at the University of Kentucky, assisted in obtaining several urgently needed documents: Mr. Akbar Marand provided the tapes and texts of Taleqani's speeches and sermons: Mr. Ahmad Abediyeh generously contributed his entire collection of Persian language newspapers and periodicals to the Publisher's library.

They were of considerable value to the project. Mr. R. K Karanjia, editor of Blitz, India’s weekly news magazine, furnished the text of this interview with the late Jawaharlal Nehru. Thanks, are also due to Mrs. Anita Oldham who typeset the manuscript with painstaking determination. Finally, thanks are due all those individuals at the library of Congress’ Middle Eastern section, the University of Cincinnati Library, and the Ohio State University library for allowing this translator generous use of their books, microfilms and audio-visual equipment.

We take full responsibility for any shortcomings that may inevitably persist.

Ahmad Jabbari
Farhang Rajaee
June 1983

• 1. Ayatullah Mahmud Taleqani “The Characteristics of Islamic Economics.” Translated by William Darrow, in John J. Donohue and John I. Esposito, editors Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1982) .
• 2. Sayyid Mahmud Taleqani Society and Economics in Islam, an anthology of writings translated by Richard Campbell and edited by Hamid Algar (Berkley, CA: Mizan Press, 1982).