Iran’s Budget: Share of Al-Mustafa International University

Numerous entities, under the direct order of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are receiving a larger share of the country’s 2022 budget. One of such institutions is Al-Mustafa International University (MIU), which is a network of religious seminaries based in the Shia holy city of Qom with branches in nearly 50 countries.

In December 2020, the United States government accused MIU of being part of a clandestine network run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and decided to put it on its sanctions list.

But how much will MIU, which claims its mission is “to promote pure Muhammadan Islam in the world”, cost the Iranian taxpayers in the next fiscal year?

The 2022 budget bill has appropriated 577 billion toman ($65,000,000) to this organization, which represents a 4% increase compared to last year.

In the past 5 years, this organization has received 1,796 billion toman ($425,000,000) from public funds.

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Last year, Iran Open Data reported, in great detail, the financial resources of Al-Mustafa International University between the years 2011 and 2021.

This report showed that more than 2.5 trillion toman ($590,000,000) of public funds, equivalent to the average income of 46,000 Iranian households, had been allocated to this institution.

How these public funds are being spent is unclear, as there is no official report on Al-Mustafa International University's financial and operational activities. Its executives have made an unverifiable claim that 50 million people worldwide have converted to Shiism because of its global effort. If this really is true, then the Islamic Republic has spent more than 500,000 toman ($120), in nominal terms, of public funds for every convert in the past decade. 

Read more:
Iran's Budget: ‘Security and Order’ Gets Six Times More Funding than ‘Water Resources’
Iran's Budget: The Growing Share of Supreme Leader's Representative Office in Revolutionary Guards

This article was originally published in Persian (available here).