THE Israeli-US nexus’ fixation on Iran’s universities and seminaries betrays an anxiety deeper than geopolitics.

For decades, the duo assumed that “shock and awe,” sanctions and assassination of Iranian leaders would cripple the Islamic Republic. Its military infrastructure was neutralized, yet Iran endured, innovating in science, technology and asymmetric strategies. The realization that Iran’s strength lies not in conventional arms but in intellectual capital has opened a new front: after decimating schools, hospitals and urban centres, the assault now targets universities, research institutes and seminaries.

Despite decades of isolation, Iran forged a formidable intellectual foundation. After the 1979 Revolution, many of its brightest minds returned from abroad to build a scientific and technological infrastructure. Universities became bastions of resilience, where laboratories replaced barracks and research displaced rhetoric. Under pressure, society learned to innovate, producing indigenous technologies and resisting external coercion. Bombs may shatter runways, but they cannot silence ideas.

Iran’s intellectual resilience is rooted in centuries of scholarship. During the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, when Europe languished in the Dark Ages, Persian lands produced some of the greatest minds in human history. Ibn Sina, Al Khwarizmi, Omar Khayyam, Al Farabi, Al Ghazali, Fakhr al Din al Razi et-al enriched knowledge across disciplines. This heritage is not a relic but a living tradition. Iranian universities today draw upon this reservoir, instilling pride and continuity. Iqbal, the philosopher-poet of the East, captured this continuity in a timeless couplet: “Attar ho, Rumi ho, Razi ho, Ghazali ho/Kuch hath nahin aata bey aah e sehergahi”—reminding us that intellectual and spiritual striving, not brute force, sustains civilizations. Iran’s universities embody this ethos, continuing a tradition of inquiry that no external assault can extinguish. Iran’s governance structure also reflects this intellectual pedigree. Unlike monarchies or party-based democracies, the Islamic Republic derives legitimacy from religious legal philosophy. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, educated at Qom Seminary, specialized in jurisprudence, philosophy, theology and mysticism, producing works such as Kashf al-Asrar, Tahrir al-Wasilah and Islamic Government, which shaped the Republic’s ideological foundation. His successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also seminary-trained, authored religious and ideological works, including Quranic exegesis and lectures on governance.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earned a PhD in Civil Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology, with a thesis on transportation planning in Tehran. Ali Larijani completed a doctorate in Western Philosophy at the University of Tehran, writing on the foundations and epistemology of mathematics. Hassan Rouhani obtained his PhD in Constitutional Law from Glasgow Caledonian University, exploring the flexibility of Shariah in the Iranian context. This blend of clerical authority and technocratic expertise makes Iran’s leadership unique. Their legitimacy is not inherited but earned through scholarship, inspiring respect among the masses.

To contextualize this tradition, one must recall Allama Muhammad Iqbal’s own academic journey. In 1908, he completed his PhD at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich with the dissertation “The Development of Metaphysics in Persia.” Metaphysics—the study of reality at its most fundamental level—asks what it means to exist and how mind and matter relate. Iqbal’s thesis traced the evolution of Persian philosophical thought, linking ancient metaphysics to modern currents. His Persian poetry, deeply philosophical and mystical, is central to his legacy and is taught widely in Iran, ensuring his popularity there as a poet‑philosopher who bridged Persian tradition with modern Muslim thought. Iran absorbed Iqbal’s call for intellectual and spiritual revival, while Pakistan often confines him to the role of a mere dreamer of a homeland. Slogans like parho farsi, becho tel (“learn Persian, then peddle oil”) trivialized scholarship, misleading generations into undervaluing his deeper philosophy. Iqbal’s career was prolific: he taught Arabic in Lahore, composed patriotic verses such as Tarana-e-Hindi and later advanced a global Islamic vision. His Persian masterpiece Asrar-i-Khudi urged self-realization and affirmed the divine spark within every human being. Inspired by Rumi, he pressed Muslims to reclaim their spiritual and intellectual heritage. His lectures, compiled as The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam and his Allahabad Address of 1930 laid the foundations of the two-nation theory.

Though revered in Pakistan as Hakim-ul-Ummat and Mufakkir-e-Pakistan, his universal message—rejecting feudalism and championing intellectual renewal—remains neglected. The Zionists, themselves heirs to an ancient tradition, are fully cognizant of Iran’s rich heritage. Netanyahu, wary of Iran’s intellectual depth, has sought to isolate and weaken it, lest its legacy rise to challenge Zionism. Donald Trump, by contrast, has shown little appreciation for history, reducing Iran to a target rather than recognizing its civilizational resilience. But history suggests otherwise. When Baghdad’s House of Wisdom flourished, European scholars travelled east to learn. When Persian polymaths wrote treatises, their works were translated into Latin and shaped the Renaissance.

Today, Iran’s resilience is as much intellectual as it is political. Its scholars, steeped in centuries of tradition, embody a continuity that transcends military might. Weapons may be neutralized, but wisdom cannot. Iran’s leaders—clerics like Khomeini and Khamenei or technocrats such as Ahmadinejad, Larijani and Rouhani—derive legitimacy from learning, a stark contrast to rent-a-crowd politics elsewhere. Tel Aviv and Washington reveal their deepest fear: that Iran’s strength lies not in its soldiers but in its scholars. It appears the aim is to dismantle the cradle of civilization and replace it with the supremacy of artificial intelligence—mindless when divorced from human wisdom. Pakistan, too, must heed the lesson of the Poet of the East—a son of its soil—and rediscover the power of intellect as the true foundation of national strength.

—The writer, Retired Group Captain of PAF, is author of several books on China.

© Pakistan Observer