فصلنامه اقتصاد اسلامی
پیاپی 51 (پاییز 1392)

Achieving economic independence and an acceptable degree of self-sufficiency has been an ideal of different societies throughout history. The main purpose of this paper is to explicate the economic independence's status in Islam and the government’s role in its being realized. To do this, we first theoretically analyze the concepts of economic independence, using religious texts, especially Quran, tradition and the opinions of Islamic scholars, including Imam Khomeini. Then, using descriptive statistics, we study the different criteria of economic independence. Finally, this paper tries to model and assess the role of government in realizing economic independence between 1979 and 2010, using time -varying parameter (TVP) approach and Kalman filter method. The results of the model show that government's current spending has increased economic dependence during this period, but its construction spending has always reduced dependency and promoted economic independence. The findings also show that economic growth in Iran has not been effective in decreasing or increasing dependency.

In the viewpoint of Islam in contrast to that of the western doctrines, individuals, on the one hand, and society, on the other hand, are both important. In this framework such issues as resistance and such virtues as collectivism, altruism, abnegation and helping the fellow beings make sense. Our task here is explicating the role of people in the economic progress, based on the supreme leader’s prescriptions and applying the text grounded theory. The importance of this study and the necessity of theorizing in this field will beclearer if we consider that the supreme leader has identified the people's economy as a main element of resistive economy. Thus, the supreme leader’s expressions are examined as a source of data. After coding and analyzing the data the people’s role in economic progress is illustrated as a visual model, emphasizing on the context conditions causal conditions intervening conditions strategies and consequences. Moreover, according to the abovementioned model, some plan measures necessary for realizing the people's economy have been proposed.

Reviewing the theoretical models of Ijarah Sukuk, which are Shariah-compliant and economically practical, this paper designs the “Ijarah Muntahia Bittamleek Sukuk for the sake of liquidity management” as a model that can be used in the context of Islamic finance to conduct Open Market Operations (OMO) in the Iranian Banking System. The model is presented in the form of the following three operational models: 1. Issuing central bank Ijarah Sukuk based on the government capital assets and using the gathered funds to repay the government debts to the central bank. 2. Issuing governmental Ijarah Sukuk based on the government capital assets and using the gathered funds to repay the government debts to the central bank. 3. Issuing central bank Ijarah Sukuk based on the central bank capital assets. In each case, besides explicating the model and the optimal method for its being applied, the developments in the monetary base are analyzed. The results of the study, which are derived based on an analytical-descriptive approach, show that the main prerequisite for supporting production of goods and services in the Iranian economy is to conduct the monetary policies in a suitable way to control inflation. For doing this, it is inevitable for the central bank to have proper and Shariah-compliant financial instruments. It seems that the operational models of Ijarah Sukuk presented in this research, have enough capacity to be used for Open Market Operations (OMO). Hence, considering the jurisprudential and economicpoint of view, these models can be considered as a substitute or complement for the current Iranian central bank Musharakah Sukuk.

In this paper, by constructing and solving an optimization model for Islamic and conventional banking systems, we try to use the stochastic dynamic optimization method, as a new approach, to evaluate the degree of compliance of Iranian banking system with the ideal model of Islamic banking. Thus, we have used the monthly data of an Iranian bank over the years 2006 to 2011 in order to extract the necessary parameters in the model. Based on the simulation results, we have found that although the selected bank operates in accordance with the Islamic contracts in the framework of interest-free banking law, its performance is far from optimal paths proposed by Islamic banking model and almost near to the conventional banking proposed paths. It seems that its reason is the banking system's paying no attention to the role of bank as the depositor's agent and the transferor of all real profits and losses to them.

Bank guarantee letter is a written promise issued by a bank to pay a definite or definable sum of money to the beneficiary in the event that the obligor fails to honor its obligations in accordance with the terms and conditions of the guarantee/agreement/contract. Although bank guarantee letter is a modern mechanism for facilitating and accelerating the economic activities, its jurisprudential and juridical aspects have not been paid enough attention, as it is a modern phenomenon. In this paper, using the documentary and descriptive-analytical method, we have tried to answer the fundamental question of its capability of being adapted to the Islamic jurisprudence and law. There is nearly no disagreement between Muslim jurisprudents about the permissibility of using bank guarantee letters, but there are some disagreements between them in regard to their nature and therefore their conditions and consequences. As regards to the issue of their legitimacy, the jurisprudents have adduced such theories as Daman, Kafalah, the contract of independency of bank guarantee letters, obligation to third party and so on. Given the lack of absolute consistency between the conditions and elements of guarantee letters, on the one hand, and those of such contracts as Wakalah, Daman and Kafalah, on the other hand, it seems that the contract of independency is more likely to be the proper theory.

Swap contracts, as a kind of derivative instruments, are of high importance and usage in financial markets. One widely-used sort of them is equity swap contract. As the Iranian financial market is developing, it is needed that all new instruments be assessed by jurisprudential standards. In this article, besides examining equity swap contract with regard to its different definitions, sorts, features, models, applications, advantages, disadvantages, and the necessity of its being used in the Iranian financial market, we have assessed its jurisprudential and juridical aspects for the first time. Examining the jurisprudential aspect of equity swap contract using a descriptive-analytical and documentary approach, this article tries to prove the hypothesis that although such a contract in proportion to Iranian financial market is not amendable due to the presence of usury in the form of Bai and Muawadah, it may be designable through "exchange of two contracts".