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As usual,our discussions of the origins of economics is  
Eurocentric,ignoring the contributions of other civilizatons to the  
development of economic science (of course,I  also have a hard time  
viewing the Greeks as western while knowing that the works of Plato  
and Xenophon devote so much to the likes of Cyrous of Persia, rather  
than to the people of  Western Europe). As some of us have tried to  
demonstrate, other civilizations, in particular medieval Muslims who  
inherited Greek and Iranian thought and Islamic-and thus Judo- 
Christian ethoes -- and also influenced later European thinkers, too  
understood some economics. 
 
For example a medieval Persian (i.,e,Iranian) ethicist named Nasir Tusi  
beleved, in a book on ethics(which he wrote in his native tongue of  
Persian), that he was DESCRIBING GENERAL AND UNIVERSAL  
LAWS ABOUT PROPERTY, ITS ACQUISITION AND  
MANAGEMENT. In DISCOURSE Two of his ethics he wrote  
 
"THERE ARE GENERAL AND UNIVERSAL LAWAS REQUIRED  
FOR WEALTH ACQUISITION AND MANAGEMENT WHOSE  
COMPONENTS SHOULD NOT ESCAPE INTELLIGENT  
PERSONS." 
 
Before providing a definition of  this science, he discusses human  
civiliation. He says 
 
"The human race is in need of social organization.This type of social  
organization,which we have already discussed, is called civilization.The  
term is derived from the term city, a city being where individuals gather  
to engage in various crafts and professions which, through  
cooperation, give rise to the attainment of the means of livelihood. Here  
by city we just do not mean the collection of dwellings but the  
association of  the inhabitants of those dwellings." 
 
Long before de Montchretien (1615) or Adam Smith,this medieval  
Persian defined a science  he called practical philosophy or philosophy  
for the management of the city (HEKMAT E MADANI) whose  
definition very much resembles the Marshallian definition of  
economics, or political economy. For that he provides the following  
definition. 
 
"FROM THIS IT IS EVIDENT THAT HEKMAT E MADANI  
(political economy?), THE SCIENCE DISCUSSED IN THIS  
DISCOURSE, IS THE STUDY OF UNIVERSAL LAWS  
GOVERNING THE PUBLIC INTEREST/WELFARE IN SO FAR  
AS THEY ARE DIRECTED, THROUGH COOPERATION,  
TOWARD THE OPTIMAL OR PERFECTION. THE OBJECT OF  
THIS SCIENCE IS THE FORMATION OF A COMMUNITY  
WHOSE MEMBERS, THROUGH COOPERATION, BEHAVE IN  
THE MOST OPTIMAL WAY." 
 
Hamid Hosseini 
 
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