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
“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?
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
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 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 ………..
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
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