Roles, Principles, Requirements, and Characteristics of Islamic Spirituality in Leadership

Introduction

The definition of leadership, according to Stogdill (1948), is “a relation that exists between people in a social situation and that people are a leader in other situations”. Gouldner (1965) proposed several features to show how the term ‘leadership’ can be understood, among them being those whose achievements are based on many goals considered as extraordinary, those who give encouragement and receive honest feedback from the people, and those whose status is recognisably higher compared to others who are involved in the same activity (Ahmad Redzuwan, 2001). In other words, leadership is a high position and is held by those who are the best.

The general meaning of leadership is ‘a way of organizing human activities through the centralization of power to achieve communities living goals’. Ibn Taimiyyah (1971) noted that leadership is a major religious obligation. Without leadership, the administration of religion and nation cannot be carried out properly. Fiedler (1967) viewed leadership as a personal relationship, where the power and influence are not evenly distributed so that an individual can command and control the actions of others more than they supposedly can over an individual. Abdul Talib (1972) defined leadership as the art to organise, coordinate and seek stimulants for individuals or groups to convey the aspirations of an organisation. Al-Mawardi (1960) argued that a leader is a person who replaces Muhammad PBUH in religious and public affairs. While Ibn Khaldun (2000) opined that leaders are those who lead the task to perform the affairs of the world and the hereafter. Majid Ali (1998) believed that leaders are those who have been authorised (delegated authority) to implement Islamic law.

Western scholars define leadership as the influence between individuals executed in a situation and directed through the communication process towards a specific goal. Besides that, leadership is very crucial in organizational administration (Yukl, 2013) and it will not succeed if the leadership aspect is not taken care of by the management (Hasan Al-Banna et al., 2021). Excellent leadership will create a brilliant, glorious, and well-regarded society and organisation. Therefore, management and leadership are two important elements in ensuring an organization’s success in the future. Any organization without his leadership and management will remain status quo and never become productive (Drucker, 2007). According to Rajesh (2016), management is defined in many ways and it can be summarised as the process of reaching organizational goals by working with and through the people and other organizational resources. To get the work done through the efforts of other people, a leader should plan, do, act, check, coordinate and control the human resource to achieve the objectives of the organization.

Furthermore, some scholars have divided the evolution of management theory into four main perspectives; 1) classical perspective, 2) behavioural perspective, 3) quantitative perspective and 4) contemporary perspective. Referring to this evolution, they claimed that modern management started from the industrial revolution era in Europe since the late 19^th century. However, the development of management through spiritual organizational leadership has begun since the glory of Islam in the era of the Prophet PBUH.

According to the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad PBUH, all Muslim individuals are regarded as leaders and are responsible to properly manage those who are under their responsibilities, as mentioned in the sayings of Prophet Muhammad PBUH: