LEARNING ORGANIZATION DRIVERS in THE CONTEXT of a UNIVERSITY: A VIEW FROM ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVES

 Oleh: 

MOHD RAFI BIN MOHD SOLLEH

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND LIFE SCIENCES

UNISEL

INTRODUCTION

 

It is believed that learning university drivers do not contradict with Islamic Teachings. It is also believed that when all Muslims understand this, university vision will become a reality. With institutionalized Islamic Principles in university through Islamization will give a strength and new dimension to the staff. It can be quote from three hadith (in Malay language) below;

 

Bahawa Allah suka apabila seseorang dari kamu membuat sesuatu kerja

dengan memperelokkan kerjanya. (Muslim)

 

Sesungguhnya Allah itu suka jika seseorang daripada kamu membuat

sesuatu kerja dengan cekap. (Bukhari and Muslim)

 

Barang siapa yang di waktu petangnya merasakan kelelahan sebab

kerja tangannya, maka di waktu petang itulah ia terampun dosanya.

(Tabrani and Baihaqi)

           

Before this, the discussions about learning university are from other perspectives (western and Asian especially Japan). It is suggested that we look on learning university with Islamic perspectives because there are no other principles, disciplines or philosophies better than Islam. Islam is a religion for all mankind, throughout all centuries, and all places on the earth so there are no principles or disciplines that are new in Islam. The problem is Muslims do not implement Islamic Principles as a basis for their live or probably they do not know how to apply it.

 

Islamic Principles differ from other principles in the way it builds a bridge between this worldly live and akhirat (hereafter). In order to succeed in everything they do, Muslims need Allah blessing. No matter how hard they work and no matter how good their principles and disciplines, without Allah blessings, at the end, nothing works. Prof. Seyyed Hossein Nasr said that:

 

 

In Islam there are no work that are secular or without religious meaning.

Islam succeed in building a civilization that has everything influenced by

belief that everything is revealing kudus. This success has build a working

atmosphere with decency and akhlak not separated from economy.

 

Additionally, Prof. Dr. Syed Othman al-Habshi said that:

 

Contemporary societies have lost the invigorating forces which necessarily

comes from deep-rooted religious values. The industrial revolution was

actually motivated by the true protestant ethics and Puritanism. The

Islamic Empire was the result of genuine strive by God-conscious Muslims.

 

These are five principles of Learning Organization.

 

1. Mental Model

Muslims are taught to always accept and adapt all change in their live as long as it is does not contradicted Islamic Sharia and for good reason. Muslims are forbade to have a prejudice assumption on anything that contradicted their frame of mind or habit even though Islamic teaching will creates an Islamic frame of mind in Muslims mind. What they have to do is to study the change whether it contradicted to Islamic Teaching and would give a good result or not. This principle is discussed in below hadith (in Malay language):

 

Hendaklah kamu persampaikan dari aku akan mereka-mereka yang

dibelakang walaupun satu ayat dan hendaklah kamu bercerita daripada Bani

Isra'il tak mengapa kalau cerita yang berfaedah.  Dan barangsiapa sengaja

berdusta atasku, hendaklah ianya sediakan tempat duduknya di neraka.

(Riwayat Al-Bukhari)

 

In organizational perspectives, all staff must accept changes and a new and good opinions or suggestions even though they contradicted to staff frame of mind. This is to ensure that organizational vision could be achieved because different mental model would trigger a conflict and then separated and may be grouped the staffs. Islamic teaching forbade negative thinking and there should be truthful and trustworthy. 

 

2. Shared Vision

Muslims all over the world have a shared vision in their live and in everything they do. There is only one desire that each Muslims want to fulfill before they passed away, the desire to achieve Allah blessing and consent. Organizational vision is automatically being their vision as long as it is not contradicted to Islamic Sharia. This is because in order to achieve Allah consent, Muslims have to follow all Islamic Teaching and one of it is to do work with full commitments. In addition, they will get rewards from God.

 

According to Dr. Ghouse Shareef (1988), through admission of Allah S.W.T universal power and universal human brotherhood, we could build a Muslim organization that would achieve congruency goal where individually goal of its members would be harmonized to organizational goal. It is could also avoid dysfunction that is a conflict between members and organizational goal. As khalifah in this world, Dr. Shareef wrote that:

 

Muslim managers and Muslim workers simultaneously report to two

supervisors -   God and the human manager in that order. This will

create a successful team approach.

 

This principle is also agreed by western scholars. For example, Terrance E. Real and Allen A. Kennedy wrote in their book titled Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life.

 

Values are the bedrock of any corporate culture. As the essence of a

company's philosophy for achieving success, values provide a sense of

common direction for all employees and guidelines for their day-to-day

behavior ....often companies succeed because their employees can identify,

embrace, and act on values of the organization.

 

 

3. Team Learning

Muslims are taught to live together with their community, teammate and colleagues. They are forbade to live individually and avoiding in sharing with others. Each Muslim is like a mirror to other Muslims. Everyone has to mend others fault. This is discussed in below Quranic Ayat (in Malay language),

 

.....dan hendaklah tolong menolong kamu atas kebajikan dan takwa, dan

jangan kamu tolong menolong atas membuat dosa dan perseteruan......

(Al-Ma'idah:ayat 3)

 

Any knowledge that one has must also be shared to others. There is no confidential knowledge in Islam. Problems such as misunderstanding and conflict must be solved in musyawarah. An opportunity to speak and to share opinion must be given to everyone. A just and fair trial must be given to all accused person. These also could be done in a musyawarah. Other than that, Muslims must not feel ashamed to ask anything that they do not know to anyone. In addition, Muslim whose been asked can not humiliated; bullied, or ignored the one that asked you. Everyone needs some courage in order to ask question to others. This is discussed in below Quranic Ayat (in Malay language),

 

........bermesyuaratlah dengan mereka dalam urusan itu........(Ali-Imran:ayat 159)

 

4. Systems Thinking

Everything that Muslims do everyday must benefited either themselves or others (Muslims and non Muslims). Islam emphasizes and concerns more on society than individuals. Muslim must consider his society or teammate or colleagues as priority even though it will affect and harm himself individually. Team's vision is also his or her priority. Muslims must not do anything that will harm their society or team and in this case, their organization. This principle is discussed in below hadith (in Malay language):

 

 

Bandingan orang-orang mukmin dalam bercinta mereka dan berkasih

sayang mereka dan bertolong-tolongan mereka seperti bandingan satu

 badan; apabila sakit satu anggota daripadanya tertariklah sekalian

anggota (hingga)tiada dapat tidur dan demam.(Muslim)

 

 

 

5. Personal Mastery

Muslim must practice self-muhasabah which means always examine on himself in order to find any weakness, bad habits or insufficient of knowledge. Once the problems have been found, immediate repairs are taken sufficiently. Muslims must take it upon themselves to begin an immediate self-reformation. This process will only stop at the time they passed away. This is discussed in below dalil naqli (in Malay language),

  

 

Sesungguhnya Allah sukakan mukmin yang pakar (al-Muhtarif).

 (Tabrani, al-Hakim and al-Tarmidhi)

 

Barangsiapa berjalan atau mencari jalan buat menuntut ilmu, nescaya

 dimudah Allah Ta'ala baginya jalan ke syurga.(Riwayat Muslim)

 

....sesungguhnya Allah tidak mengubah apa yang ada pada sesuatu kaum

 sehingga mereka mengubah apa yang ada pada diri mereka sendiri.......

(Ar-Ra'd:11)

 

 

Application

 

To implement Islamic Principles in organization, first thing to do is to spread Islamic Knowledge among the staffs. Staff must understand Islamic Knowledge deeply so that they can accept and then adapt all Islamic Principles in their works. Prof. Dr. Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, contemporary Islamic Thinking expert wrote that:

 

Islamization is the liberation of man first from magical, mythological,

animistic, national, cultural tradition, and then from secular control over his

reason and his language. Islamization is a process not so much of evolution

as that of devolution to original nature; man as spirit is already perfect, but

man as such when actualized as physical being is subject to forgetfulness

and ignorance and in-justice to himself and hence is not necessarily perfect.

Thus in the individual, personal, existential, sense Islamization refers to

what is described above in which the Holy Prophet represents the highest

and most perfect example; in the collective, social and historical sense

Islamization refers to the community's striving towards realization of the

moral and ethical quality of social perfection achieved during the age

of the Holy Prophet (s.a.w) who created it under Divine Guidance.

 

Second, Islamic Value must be included into modern concepts. Each principle, discipline and discussion must first be adapted according to Islamic Principles. Any principle, discipline or discussion that contradicted to Islamic Principles must be rejected. This is because it will drive them to a failure.

 

Third, material and spiritual must be blend together. This is because both need each other in order to succeed. This is fitrah or natural of human being. We all know that any disturbance on fitrah will produce bad effect. A problem in either one will affected the other.

 

Fourth, organization must hire workers with basic Islamic Knowledge and good in akhlak. This is to ensure that they could accept and adapt smoothly Islamic Principles in their work and do not opposing them. This is to make sure that there is no conflicts exist. For non-Muslim, they must understand that Islamic Principles will never affected them and be their burden.

 

Fifth, all staff must practice purification of heart. They may need to meet once a week in a program such as a brainstorming session so that everybody can practice muhasabah and then try not to repeats all the mistakes they did before. This also can be done through Islamic Activity like a kuliah, tadarrus, tazkirah and so on.

 

Sixth, reinventing of attitude. Actually, it is grown parallel with purification of heart. Akhlak will grow automatically when the heart is sincere or tulus. What they need now is a deep knowledge about Islamic Akhlak.

 

Seventh, rejuvenating of intellect-character. All character must not contradicted Islamic Character. Any contradiction must be rejected.