MANAGEMENT STUDIES: WESTERN WORLDVIEW AND WORLD VIEW OF

ISLAM

AHMAD YANI ISMAILFaculty of Management and Muamalah

KUIS

1st International Conference On Management and Muamalah

13 NOV 2014KUIS

MANAGEMENT STUDIES : WESTERN WORLDVIEW AND THE WORLD VIEW OF ISLAM

“Malaysians are more Eurocentric than ever before” - Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed, February 2014

INTRODUCTION

"Do not just follow the West just because they are the West. Try to get away from this idea that the world is Eurocentric and whatever comes from Europe, you must copy. " - Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed, February 2014

Resolutions of Muslim Universities Vice-Chancellors’/Presidents’ Forum, 2010

The existing Muslim universities’ higher education models are norm referenced which is derived from the Eurocentric system

Current approaches of higher education are characterized by Eurocentrism

Eurocentrism/Eurocentric And Worldview

Eurocentrism is about Western worldview (Said, 1978; Amin, 1988)

Eurocentrism bertolak daripada anggapan bahawa manusia adalah haiwan bermasyarakat (social animal) dan ilmu pengetahuan pada dasarnya dibina di atas dasar kehidupan bermasyarakat, mereka yang berpandangan kemasyarakatan berpendapat bahawa pendidikan bertujuan mempersiapkan manusia yang dapat berperanan dan dapat menyesuaikan diri dalam masyarakat masing-masing – Al Attas

What is worldview?

Opinion? Perspective? Analysis? Conclusion? Thought process?

Idea? View? Assumption?

What is a worldview?

What is a worldview?

World + view = How we view the world?

Our lens

Perspective?

Point of view?

Opinion?

View?

Viewpoint?How we view of life events?

Our own way of looking the world based on our cultural background and upbringing.

One's philosophy, philosophy of life, mindset, and outlook on life, formula for life, ideology, faith, or even religion.

What is a worldview?

“The vision of reality and truth that appears before our mind’s eye revealing what existence is all about; for it is the world of existence in its totality that Islam is projecting” - Al Attas

“An Islamic design of reality relating it, on the one hand, to the epistemology of the Divine Unity and, on the other hand, to the world reality and system” - Choudhury

Western Worldview Worldview of Islam

Western Worldview Worldview of Islam

Western worldview

Emphasises on human life in this world and has removed the focus on an afterworldly spiritual destiny - Tarnass

Man no longer appeared so inconsequential relative to God, the Church, or nature.

Modern scientific thinking, the fundamental principles are empiricism, mathematics and mechanics - Tarnass

Individualistic, skeptical and secular spirit of the modern age and science emerged as the West’s new faith.

Empirical, rational, appealing to common sense and to a concrete reality that every person could touch and weigh for himself.

The West has taken out God from their equation of life and overly committed to this life and this world -Salleh and Ahmad

Western Scientific

worldview

EmpiricismSoulless

Reductionism

Positivist - Comte

Objectivity

ScientismClassical mechanistic Newtonian-Cartesian science

Universe is like a huge physical (material) machine working on a clockwork mechanism

Human is viewed as a machine - Descartes

Social Science underpinned by Scientism & Positivism

Epistemologically only recognise observable knowledge

To Comte, knowledge is limited to only the observable and human or people were “social atoms” motivated by forces analogous to Newtonian physics

(Rosenblum and Kuttner, 2006).

Worldview of Islam

Islamic epistemology recognizes two sources of knowledge, observed knowledge and revealed knowledge

It includes religious and spiritual issues dealing with God, the soul, the unseen world, the angels, ilm al-mukashafah, and other metaphysical subjects, as well as material or worldly issues (ilm al-mu’amalah) – Al Ghazali

Islamic epistemology is both wholeness and holiness.

Islamic epistemology is both religious and other-worldly, and materially oriented and this worldly

Worldview of Islam

Soul and Spirit

Tawhidic/Oneness

God presence

Vicegerency

Interconnectedness Universe

EUROCENTRIC

WESTERN WORLDVIEW

GOD ABSENCE

SCIENCE AS RELIGION

MECHANISTIC HUMAN

MECHANISTIC UNIVERSE

OBSERVABLE KNOWLEDGE

WORLDVIEW OF ISLAM

GOD PRESENCE

SOUL HUMAN

INTERCONNECTEDNESS COSMOS

OBSERVABLE AND REVEALED KNOWLEDGE

CREATOR

Humans follow command-control rules andhuman behavior is predictable

LIFE : ISLAMIC WORLVIEW VS WESTERN WORLDVIEW

LUH MAHFUZ

RAHIM

BARZAKH

AKHIRAT

DUNIA

RAHIM

DUNIA

ISLAMIC WORLDVIEW OF LIFE WESTERN WORLDVIEW OF LIFE

SOCIAL SCIENCES AND MANAGEMENT STUDIES

Management Studies are component of Social Sciences

Hobson (2004) established social sciences rooted in Eurocentrism.

Social science was influenced by positivism focusing on knowledge based on actual positive sense experience and avoiding the negative - Kuper, A., & Kuper, J. (1985). The Social Science Encyclopaedia.

Auguste Comte divided science into Natural or Physical Sciences (Science of Positivism) and Social Sciences.

SOCIAL SCIENCES AND MANAGEMENT STUDIES

Classical Newtonian-Cartesian traditions like locality, determinism, causality, value-free and objectivity, too, became the pillars of management theories and the philosophy of business – Salleh and Ahmad (2008)

Human from Western worldview is mechanistic human.

The object of study of the social sciences is human being (Iheriohanma, 2013).

The underlying assumption of human is mechanistic human, human as resource, homoeconomicus.

BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

Classical Newtonian-Cartesian traditions like locality, determinism, causality, value-free and objectivity, too, became the pillars of management theories and the philosophy of business – Salleh and Ahmad (2008)

Bearing in mind that scientific worldview of the West is based on the classical Newtonian-Cartesian model.

Henry Fayol (1841-1925), one of the earliest management theorists applied scientific approach to the management problems he encountered (Brunsson, 2007).

BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

CONTROL MECHANISTIC HUMAN

to direct the behavior to cause to do what you wantto have power over (something)to direct the actions or function of (something) to cause (something) to act or function in a certain way

WWV

IWV

BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

BUSINESS AND FREE WILL

Free will, from Western worldview, has no divine intervention.

As free agents, people were assumed to behave in a rational manner. Hence the underlying assumption of rationality prevailed.

Entrepreneurs were looked at as free agents who were free to choose risky business in the hope for reward.

"the power of agents to be the ultimate creators (or originators) and sustainers of their own ends or purposes“ – R.Kane (1996)

Free will = I can do anything I want

Rationale = ratio = devoid of soul, Divine

BUSINESS AND FREE WILL - WWV

Free will, from Western worldview, has no divine intervention.

"the power of agents to be the ultimate creators (or originators) and sustainers of their own ends or purposes“ – R.Kane (1996)

Free will = I can do anything I want

Godless

UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHY OF ………..

FINANCE : Debt-based regime & money creation

Financing

UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHY OF FINANCE

UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHY OF ………..

LEGAL : Caveat emptor

With machines too, any defects could only be known through discovery not disclosure

Discover DiscloseVS

Human as machines

UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHY OF ………..

HUMAN RESOURCE :

Human as resource

Utilitarian code

“products”, robots in flesh

transparency and disclosureethos

“resources” to drive up the pace of economic growth and national “success”

UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHY OF ………..

Overly emphasize on the physical sense perception.

ACCOUNTING :

Who are the stakeholders?

Enforce the concept of rationality – Weber, Schumpeter, Sombart

Language of business

Debt is considered as asset

God absence

Which business philosophy?

Assist in the development of capitalist methods of production– Weber, Schumpeter, Sombart

Double-entry bookkeeping is essential to the birth of capitalism – Sombart (1916)

UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHY OF ………..

Globalisation

Capitalist

ECONOMY : Puts national economic development goals over individual human development.

Marxism

Eurocentric/Western Worldview

“Rational person who pursues wealth for his own self-interest “ –

John Stewart Mills, Adam Smith, David Ricardo

Economic man