The Pathology of Issuing the Bonds of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran

In order to regulate money market and achieve their monetary goals, central banks around the world make use of strategies, such as open market operations, altering the level of bank reserves and changing discount rates. Open market operations is defined as the intervention of the central bank in the bond market and state treasury as well as its engagement in selling and buying of such bonds, whose aim is to adjust the monetary base and the volume of high-powered money based on economic boom and bust conditions. Since the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran has issued its bonds in the form of open market type operations to manage liquidity in previous years, such bonds need to be evaluated with respect to the perspectives of economy and Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh).
The challenges and damages that could be brought about by the issuance of the bonds of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic or Iran was the main problem set forth in this analytical-descriptive study. It was hypothesized that central bank bonds face economic and juridical challenges. This hypothesis was examined in this study. The results reveal that, as far as Islamic jurisprudence is concerned, the the major damages of such bonds is their ambiguity in the realization of partnership contract. From an economic perspective, however, the damages include ambiguity in the realization of sterilization policy and the high costs of issuing bonds in order to carry out open market type operations.