Shift from ‘global subjugation’ to ‘world stewardship’
Farhang Rajaee’s account of development in Iran
By Mokhtar Nouri
Professor of Political Science at Razi University
The book “Farhang Rajaee’s Account of Development and Underdevelopment in Iran” is a recent publication by Shargh Newspaper Publishing, authored by Dr. Mokhtar Nouri, a faculty member at the Political Science Department of Razi University of Kermanshah, Western Iran, under the academic supervision of Dr. Mohsen Renani, Professor of Economics at Isfahan University. This work, which was written with the help of the Iranian non-governmental institution “Pooyesh Fekri Tose’e” (meaning: Intellectual Movement of Development), centers on the thought of the renowned Iranian thinker Farhang Rajaee, who dedicated nearly 50 years of his distinguished life to hashing out ideas about humanity, Iran, and, on a broader scale, human civilization.
Rajaee was confronted from his youth with a serious — as he himself describes — “lifelong” concern: “How can a desirable state of affairs be set up that benefits the majority of a society?” This persistent question, deeply linked to the field of development, was laid down in his mind by his teacher Mohammadreza Mohtat during the social sciences class at the Pahlavi High School in Arak. Hence, Rajaee’s core concern lies in the disorder and lack of striking a balanced chord in production within human societies and civilizations, generally, and, specifically, Iranian society.
In his quest to get out of this disorder and imbalance, Rajaee later became acquainted with what he calls “world stewardship” and the “law of the world stewardship’s logic” through his professor Hamid Enayat at the University of Tehran. This led him to dive into the profound and significant “Letter of Tansar” — who was a wise mobad of the Ancient Sassanid era, described as “one who has a head on his shoulders and is above worldly rules” — seeking a way to break through today’s problems.
This concern dragged Rajaee into various fields such as history, identity, culture, ethics, tradition, modernity, development, and Iranians’ encounter with modernity. It can be said that Rajaee’s main issue is development and progress, but he approaches it with his own perspective under the theory or vision of the “law of the world stewardship’s logic”. For Rajaee, development means the rolling out of this law — in other words, the transition from global subjugation to world stewardship.
Therefore, Rajaee seeks to figure out why world stewardship and its laws have not become the dominant framework for governance for Iranians. In his search for this law and to achieve his desired imagined state, Rajaee, like many contemporary Iranian intellectuals, sets foot on the battleground of the clash between modernity and tradition — a longstanding dilemma. According to him, this arena calls for serious dedication and effort because development must be played out like a well-orchestrated symphony.
Rajaee truly represents the intellectual who neither wants to fall into the pit of modernism and completely melt into Western culture nor get caught up in the trap of nativism and hostile conflict with the West. Instead, he believes in intelligent maneuvering in politics and governance, asking, “How can we play the game wisely?” His answer is that a person must bring forth willpower and, using Iranian literary and mystical terms, “hemmat” (determined effort) to play the global stage.
These premises show Rajaee as a development-minded thinker, advocating a balanced and comprehensive development that puts “public good” front and center. Rajaee’s approach to concepts like development and progress makes his thought system highly thought-provoking.
Ultimately, Rajaee’s concern is to bring about a desirable condition that benefits the majority of society. However, he explicitly states that the path to this ideal state is not found in economic growth or common quantitative and statistical measures used in development literature. Instead, without entirely sidelining economics, Rajaee downplays its key role and zeroes in on the issue of “identity.”
Thus, the Iranian identity holds significant meaning and status in Rajaee’s intellectual project. He believes that without defining who we are, we cannot effectively step up as actors or develop. His perennial questions include: Who are Iranians, and who can they become? Why has the Iranian civilizational domain fallen into a state of non-production? Why, after the Safavid era, have we not been active players, suffering what Dariush Shayegan calls a “historical vacation”? Why, in other words, has Iran failed to make the leap from the global subjugation cycle to the world stewardship cycle after the Safavid era?
For Rajaee, a key concern is discovering who the Iranian is and where he stands today. His intellectual project aims to pin down “the identity of Iranians” and figure out “how to recover their capability to act” on the world stage.
This entire framework boils down to Rajaee’s central question: “What kind of thought had truly been able — and can still — harmonize the four elements of Iranian identity, religion, tradition, and modernity into a coherent symphony that has moved all Iranians in their civilization-building eras, such as the Achaemenid period before Islam and the Safavid period after Islam, to step forward and leave a grand, global impact?”
A preliminary answer within Rajaee’s thinking is that only a worldview that brings together the three main pillars of the law of the world stewardship’s logic — “expediency,” “government/territory,” and “governance and reflection” — in a balanced harmony can establish development, stewardship, civility, and civilization. Then, the garden cultivated by the tradition of advice-writing — the final product of the law of the world stewardship’s logic — will flourish.
Development is the 'law of world stewardship’s logic'
The core concern of Mr. Farhang Rajaee is the expansion of the law of the world stewardship’s logic. Intellectually, he takes issue with the commonly accepted concept and term of development, preferring instead to use “world stewardship” or, where he can, “sustainable development”. Therefore, the desirable state of affairs for Rajaee is world stewardship, and he believes sustainable development and the indigenous concept of “world stewardship” are one and the same.
On this, he writes: “At least for two reasons, I consider the term world stewardship more precise than development. First, development is somewhat derivative and biased because it is a translation of a term that was invented in the Western cultural, social, and political context — often, as many believe, deliberately and with specific intent — making its
use for our purposes limited. Second, I do not find it universal and instead find the term world stewardship more effective and a clear example of the local/global paradox.”
Historically, in Rajaee’s view, as long as the three pillars of the law of the world stewardship’s logic — “expediency,” “government/territory,” and “governance and reflection” — were clear, despite its ups and downs, the leadership was able to carry through periods of development, world stewardship, civility, and civilization, sometimes even setting the rules of the game.
Historically, Rajaee sees two golden ages — the Achaemenid civilization of ancient Iran and the Safavid era in the Islamic period — as special periods when the law of the world stewardship’s logic and its foundations were firmly established in Iran. In other words, Rajaee believes that as long as the three pillars were solid and their expediency, territory, and governance were clear, the “Iranshahrian” government/territory could ride out the four aforementioned development phases, corresponding with four different dynasties — the Medes, Achaemenids, Parthians, and Sassanids — leaving behind civility and civilization.
During these eras, because it was developing and stewarding the world, it was also a player and often called the shots in many cases.
The government’s expediency was defined within the Zoroastrian worldview brought by the Iranian people, and the king, endowed with divine glory (“farr-e izadi”), symbolized government/territory sovereignty and, in Rajaee’s view, the political. Regarding the political, the monarchy was established, with the prime minister as its symbol; On other areas, priests embodied religion and culture, for example, while prominent families represented the societal, among others.
Subsequently, after Islam was declared the dominant worldview and religion in Iran, the Iranshahrian government/territory gradually faded away, and a new order took hold in Iran’s geographic domain. Nonetheless, despite its own ups and downs, the caliphate government remained the defining and decisive government/territory until the rise of the Safavids.
Its expediency was framed within the Islamic/Arab cultural worldview brought by the Arabs, with the caliph symbolizing government/territory sovereignty and, again per Rajaee, the political. The political system of the caliphate was established by drawing on a mix of Roman and Iranian monarchy systems, with the sultan/emir symbolizing monarch/state and the political.
Finally, during Iran’s last development period — the Safavid monarchy — the Iranian government/territory reemerged, reestablishing royal rule with the king as symbol, endowed with “the shadow of God” (instead of the ancient Iranian divine light). The prime minister was installed as the monarch/state symbol and the political, but elsewhere, for example, Sheikh al-Islam symbolized religion and culture, and Mulla Sadra represented science and arts, among others.
According to Rajaee, it was this developmental and world-stewarding quality that established the Iranian government/territory at the national level, with Armenian and Jewish minorities in its capital among the most successful and wealthy. Globally, Iran was the second major player after the Ottomans.
However, Rajaee believes that since the Safavid collapse, things have taken a turn, and this situation continues to this day.
Looking back at the Afsharid, Zand, Qajar, and Pahlavi periods, the lack of function in the “expediency, territory, and governance” framework — and consequently the government/territory — is striking. Rajaee contends that Mohammad Mosaddegh understood this divide and repeatedly urged the two Pahlavi kings to keep ruling. Even as prime minister, when asked to crack down on newspapers attacking him, he refused. What he could not stand was attacks on the state, which he saw as the identity symbol of Iranians and Muslims, and he declared this officially.
In other words, during these four periods, our political unit lacked clarity or serious recognition. Thus, instead of collective acting, the rule was “everyone with me”. The Politics dominated the political, and the monarch/state viewed itself as the government/territory so fully that it laid hands on other areas of the political — meaning economy, society, science, religion, and culture — suffocating and weakening them.
Within this historical trend, Rajaee asks: Following Iran’s Islamic Revolution and its slogans, has the Islamic Republic defined its government/territory and — within the political — its expediency in the framework of the Shia worldview and revolutionary slogans? Has it, within the discussed intellectual framework, reflected on the decorum and etiquette of affairs, turning the law of the world stewardship’s logic into the “rules of the game”? Are the government/territory and the political symbols established and recognized? Are the three branches of the republic symbols of the political, each properly separate but balanced? Do other symbols — economy, society, science and arts, religion and culture — each play their proper roles, enabling sustainable development and, as Rajaee puts it, world stewardship and acting on the global stage?
Rajaee replies that every Iranian must understand that since the Islamic Revolution, there has been challenges like the imposed war, relentless and suffocating sanctions, encirclement of the homeland — from Russia in the north, the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council and allies in the south, extremist religious forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan to the east, and the war and its extension (meaning extremist Arab forces) in the west — plus third-party sanctions tightening international operational space, and short-sighted, selfish domestic interests inside Iran.
I personally do not know if, given these challenges, anyone has even had the chance or spirit to look back at a millennium-old and historic perspective. But I always believe in future generations and hope they will rise up to not only revive but also provide a modern narrative for the three pillars of the law of the world stewardship’s logic — “expediency, government, and governance and reflection” — for themselves and Iran, so that god forbid, world-burning destruction does not catch up with us.
Conclusion
Rajaee’s historical perspective shows that since the Safavid era, the law of the world stewardship’s logic has been on vacation, and he identifies the root cause of this suspension as the confusion between “the political” and “the Politics,” and their external institutions, which in today’s political discourse are symbolized, respectively, by the government and state.
Today, such confusion is called “securitization” of issues, where in the name of security, debate, transparency, dialogue, and accountability are shut down. The result of this confusion in the Sassanid period was the final defeat and collapse of government sovereignty. In the Safavid case, it brought a second defeat due to Afghan invasions and ongoing collapse, which persists to this day.
Thus, in Rajaee’s thinking, modern development occurs only when the three pillars — expediency, government/territory, and governance and reflection — pull together in balanced harmony. But when the political and the Politics get mixed up, and worse, the Politics dominate, the first victim is the political since elements like territory, expediency, and governance are ignored or disappear entirely. This confusion inflicts heavy damage, such as: The end justifies the means; kings consider themselves owners of the territory; the rule “everyone with me” prevails; and world stewardship is replaced by global subjugation.
The climax is when the political (with all its values) becomes a tool for the Politics. A clear sign is society’s politicization and cult of personality, whether in Trump’s America, Putin’s Russia, Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia, or Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey!