Purification of the Higher Education System and Jihad of Knowledge in Iran

Abstract

For decades, the Iranian government has pursued strategies to ideologically "purify" higher education. To this end, academic staff and students have been purged or expelled for expressing dissent, and academic content has undergone revisions. This paper reviews how purification strategies in higher education have formed over time and describes how they serve the government’s agenda at home and abroad. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian government has been adopting strategies to purify the higher education system. The founder of the Islamic Revolutionary government, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have played significant roles in shaping and applying purification processes. The government has perpetually been revising university curricula across all disciplines, especially in the humanities and social sciences, to ensure compliance with the state's political ideology. This has been combined with a heavy-handed purge of university staff and students for lack of ideological and political loyalty. Strategies of purification are intensified after every round of popular uprising. Purification of the higher education system complements Iran's strategy of "jihad of knowledge," which frames the state's focus on developing forms of knowledge, which can be used to safeguard the longevity of the Islamic Revolutionary government at home and abroad. Iran’s military, nuclear, and cyber-based advancements in recent years demonstrate that purification strategies - aimed at training loyal, talented Iranians who are willing to advance the government’s scientific projects - combined with strategies inspired by the idea of jihad of knowledge, serve the state agenda well.