Islamic management

Tareq al-Suwaidan presents his project of 'Islamic management': rewriting the science of management from the philosophy of tawhid and the principle of following the Prophet, rather than copying Western categories and pasting verses and hadiths onto them; he says he has begun writing it and has not published it because it has not yet matured in his view ^{1 2}.

Al-Suwaidan holds — this is his personal view — that the 'Islamic management' books on the market are Western management coloured with verses and hadiths and not built on an Islamic philosophy: Western management has an individualist, materialist philosophy, and whoever wants to write Islamic management must master two fields — management in depth, its root and philosophy, and the Islamic side of creed, sharia, its purposes, sira and history ^{3 4}. He says his starting point is that any science called Islamic must proceed from Islam's foundation, tawhid, so he asks: what effect does the creed of tawhid have on my management as a Muslim manager? ^{2 5}.

In his project he relies on the book Af'al al-Rasul wa-Dilalatuha ala al-Ahkam al-Shar'iyya (The Prophet's Acts and Their Significance for Legal Rulings) by Dr Muhammad al-Ashqar — a doctoral thesis he judges the best written on its question — which classifies thirteen roles in which the Prophet acted, sometimes as army commander, head of state, adviser or judge, the Companions distinguishing between them and asking when they could not ^{6 7}. He ties this to usul al-fiqh and the purposes of the sharia to rewrite Islamic management ⁸.