Leadership lessons for Muslims

Eid Mubarak. Eidul Fitr is a time for celebration and reflection. The state of the public discourse in Pakistan and the opportunities for worship that the holy month of Ramazan offers should both prompt us to think more carefully about the quality of leadership in Pakistan.

This is a country that exists, in large part, because of the idealism that fuels Muslim identity and Muslim imagination. What kind of leadership should such a country be driven by? As easy answers go, none could be easier than this. The ultimate leadership qualities matrix is the one derived from the life and times of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his righteous companions (may Allah be pleased with them).

As we celebrate Eid this year, there are four leadership parables for Muslims that merit the reflection of Pakistani leaders who are otherwise so reflexively given to the use of Muslim symbolism and ideals.

The first is placement of the Black Stone, an incident that took place five years before the Revelation or roughly 605 AD. The second is from the Battle of the Trench, which was a near-month long stalemate at the beginning of the year 627 AD. During the battle, Ali ibn Abu Talib, may Allah be pleased with him, disengaged from combat when the enemy combatant spat upon his blessed face – an incident that is captured in Book One of Jalaluddin Rumi’s Masnavi.

The third parable is the Treaty of Hudaibiya, which took place about six years after the Migration or Hijrah, or roughly 629 AD. The fourth and final parable took place in roughly 630 AD, during preparations for the Tabouk Expedition, where Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, donates the entirety of his belongings for the war effort.

In all, these four incidents transcend a period of roughly a quarter century, reflect the perfection and radiate the wisdom of the Prophet’s (pbuh) persona – both before the Revelation itself and after – and they reflect the spiritual values of Islam and how those values are applicable to leaders in all conditions. The one thing that all four parables have in common? They are all stories about conflict: how it is resolved, how it is prepared for, how it is managed in the heat of the battle, and how it can be delayed, and dealt with strategically, without damaging the mission.

About five years prior to the Revelation, after a cleansing and renovation of the Kaaba, the placement of the Black Stone became an issue on which the clans of Makkah disagreed. Which of the clans or tribes would get to place the Black Stone? This was an honour for which many leaders at the time were willing to go to battle for. As a last-ditch effort to avoid bloodshed, the clans agreed to randomly let the next person to enter the sanctum to be afforded the right to adjudicate on their behalf.

As it happened, it was the Prophet (pbuh) who was destined to be the one chosen to mediate a solution. The solution he devised is the gold standard for conflict resolution for Muslim leaders. A large piece of cloth was brought to the scene, the Black Stone was placed on the cloth by the Prophet. Each of the clans were asked to nominate a leader to hold up the cloth, thereby allowing every tribe and clan to have a representative involved in lifting the Black Stone and moving it to the location where it was to be placed. The Prophet (pbuh) then took the Black Stone and completed the process himself. This is the one example among many of the Islamic focus on consensus, on representation, and inclusivity.

During the Battle of the Ditch, the Prophet’s beloved Ali ibn Abu Talib was in a sword battle with an enemy combatant. Ali’s blessed sword raised above him, the defeated enemy, anticipating his end, spat in Ali’s blessed face. The sword already in motion, the Lion of God somehow stopped it from slaying the enemy and released him. Why? Rumi’s Masnavi explains in great detail – curious readers can access it by searching for “Ali and the enemy who spat in his face”.

The short version is simple and stands as a leadership quality that all Muslims must aspire to in all circumstances. The purpose of the fight is not the ego, or the satisfaction of ‘winning’. The purpose is to serve a higher cause. If during the fight, even at the most unjustified provocation, our motive is contaminated by anger, or vengeance, or ego, then the Momin must reflect on why she or he is engaged in battle in the first place.

No individual moment in Muslim spiritual history is as powerful as Ali’s ability to stop himself, mid-swing, in the heat of battle, from vanquishing an enemy, because in that split second, he realized and accepted that the act of slaying the enemy, the moment the enemy spits in Ali’s blessed face, is the moment that the fight is no longer in defence of the faithful and in service of God. In that moment, it becomes an act informed by other factors – perhaps anger, perhaps vengeance, perhaps reaction – but not the primary mission of the fight. And so the Lion of God leaves all believers, for all time to come, with the ultimate in purposive leadership in real time – on the battlefield in the heat of combat: ‘winning’ only matters if its purpose is pure. A sated ego is not the same thing as a purpose served.

The Treaty of Hudaibiya – an agreement the Prophet (pbuh) negotiated himself – is the ultimate in strategic foresight and vision. Nearly 1,400 years later, it continues to embody the Muslim ethos of avoidance of conflict and bloodshed for the sake of a higher purpose that is better served without all-out war. The subsequent Conquest of Makkah, also as bloodless a decisive military victory as there ever was, is a direct derivative of the patience and wisdom that the agreement written at Hudaibiya represents. Muslim leaders that are struggling to serve a higher cause need to examine their own motives in moments where they choose escalation over ‘treaties’. Do their decisions embody the values that they claim to stand for?

And, finally, on embodying and living up to the narratives that a leader claims, there is the commitment, the faith and the generosity of Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, prior to the Expedition to Tabouk. In 630 AD, shortly after the Conquest of Makkah, the emerging Muslim state needed to put up a show of force. Tabouk ended up being both a tactical stroke of genius and a strategic signal, necessitated by troop movements and micro aggressions directed at Muslims from Byzantine. To make it possible, the Prophet (pbuh) invited Muslims to make contributions to prepare for the expedition to Tabouk. Enter Abu Bakr, who brought everything he owned to the scene. Upon being asked as to what was left for his family to sustain itself, he said: “For my family, I leave Allah and His Prophet, the Holy Messenger".

Skin in the game? The Muslim leader embodies it, thrives in it, lives for it. Faced with a resource crunch, and up against a wall as the growing threat from Byzantine metastasized, Abu Bakr exemplified the commitment and faith that is at the heart of a believer’s leadership journey.

From the placement of the Black Stone, to the control over one’s sword embodied at the Battle of the Trench, to strategic vision and tactical patience represented by the Treaty of Hudaibiya, to the purity of faith that prompts the generosity that helped resource the Tabouk Expedition – the Muslim leader finds the path to victory through building consensus, being inclusive, suppressing the ego, avoiding the allure of vengeance, avoiding and delaying conflict, curating and accumulating smaller victories, demonstrably putting his or her money where their mouth is, and remembering at all times an ultimate and higher purpose for leadership.

Eid Mubarak to all of Pakistan’s leaders and all their followers. We can and, inshaAllah, will do better. Together.

The writer is an analyst and commentator.