Human Resource Development is the process of identifying, promoting and enhancing the required talents among the available human resource. Human Resource Development includes training an individual after he is hired, providing him with opportunities to learn new skills, distributing resources that are beneficial for the employee’s tasks and any other training and developmental activities. HRD is the development of people through the right means in an appropriate environment where each individual may grow to his fullest potentialities. Human resources are viewed as total knowledge, skills, creative abilities, talents and aptitudes. The main aim of HRD is to bring about an all-round development of people, so that they can contribute their best to the organisation, society and nation.
IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Allah creates living beings from lifeless things, He granted life to soil and rock. In the same way, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) transformed rocks, soil, coal, and copper into gold and diamonds. Just consider the case of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Khalid ibn al-Walid, Uqba ibn Nafi and many others (may Allah be pleased with them all), all of whom were brought up by the Prophet. The Prophet never allowed human faculties to remain undeveloped. He developed them and replaced weakness with marvellous competency. The Prophet eradicated countless ingrained bad habits and replaced them with laudable virtues and habits.
The Prophet had a holistic view of each individual. He took all of their mental and spiritual capacities and developed them, turning his own wretched people into paragons of virtue. His wisdom of assessing such potential is another proof of his Prophethood. As a result, whatever he preached was accepted immediately in his house and by his followers, for his words pertained all of their hearts. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) is the greatest person in human history to recognise, create and utilise human resource the most. Due to this, the movement grew exponentially in a very short span of time.
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) said, “People are like ores. Those who were excellent in the days of ignorance are excellent in Islam provided they acquire the knowledge and understanding of the religion…” (Bukhari and Muslim). In the hadith the Prophet has mentioned that people are compared to an ore. An ore is a type of rock that contains sufficient minerals with important elements, including metals that can be economically extracted from the rock. The ores are extracted from the earth through mining; they are then refined to extract the valuable elements. Similarly, man is also a being filled with a lot of skill and talent and it can be put to right use if they gain knowledge and understanding of the religion.
DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCE
The following are the various Human Resources which were created by the Prophet:
i. Scribes
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) understood the situation and the need, and then based on the situation he would take steps to recognise them, create them and then utilise them. When the Qur’ān began to be revealed, the first task was to create people who could record all the revelations. He created 42 companions for the task, some of them are Abu Bakr, Umar, Usman, Ali, Zayd bin Thabit, Abdallah bin Masood, Zubair bin Al-Awm, Khaild bin Sayeed, Hanzla bin Rabee, Khaled bin Waleed, Abdallah bin Rawaha, Muhammad bin Musallamah, Abdallah bin Abdallah, Mughairah bin Shaba, Abdallah bin Amar bin Aas, Muaawiyah, Jahm bin Al-Ssalt, Muaeqeeb bin Abi Fatimah, Abdallah bin Arqam, Thabit bin Qais bin Shamas, Huzaifa bin Yamaan, Amir bin Faheerah, Abdallah bin Abi Al-Sarh, Sayeed bin Jubair, Sharahbeel bin Hasnah and Abaan bin Sayeed.
ii. Preachers
After this task, the next most important task was to create a group of preachers who could travel to different places and preach Islam. After creating preachers, he sent groups to different places, based on the need and requirement. They are as follows:
i. The first set of people was sent to Abyssinia. The Prophet sent them not only because the Muslims were facing hardship there, but that they could spread the message of Islam to other places as well. The group comprised 12 men and four women, among them were Jafar ibn Abi Talib, Uthman bin Affan and his wife Ruqaiyah.
ii. The second set of people was again sent to Abyssinia at a later stage. After the news about the good hospitality, warm welcome that the Muslims received and opportunity to spread Islam, he decided to send more people. The group comprised 83 men and 19 women (some versions say 18). This group also played a significant role in spreading Islam in Abyssinia.
iii. Later, the expedition to Al-Raji occurred directly after the Battle of Uhud. After the battle a group of men from Adal and Al-Qarah came to the Prophet and requested him to send with them a few instructors to teach Islam to their people who had embraced Islam. The Prophet agreed to this, and promptly sent six men (some versions say 10) with them. This could easily happen as the Prophet had already created people for the task.
iv. Later, at the tragedy at the well of Maunah, Amir bin Malik came to Madinah. The Prophet asked him to embrace Islam, but he neither agreed nor refused. He asked the Prophet to send some of his companions to the people of Najd to call them to Islam and he also said that he would protect them. Then, he sent 70 men (some versions say 40).
iii. Diplomats
After this, the next task on hand was to create a group of diplomats, who could represent Islam and visit different countries and have dialogues with the respective leaders. Musab bin Umair was sent to Madinah, Jafar ibn Abi Talib and Amr ibn Umaiyyah Zumairi were sent to Abyssinia, Abdullah bin Huzaifa was sent to Persia, Shuja ibn Wahab was sent to Damascus, Haatib bin Abi Balta was sent to Egypt, Ula bin Hazrami was sent to Bahrain, Amr ibn Alyaas was sent to Oman, Saeed bin Amr was sent to Yamama and Dihyah al-Kalbi was sent to Rome.
iv. Intelligence
Later when the wars began, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) needed intelligence to get information from the enemies. Thus, he created people who could perform the task of intelligence. Later on companions were sent as intelligence at the Battle of Badr, at the Battle of Uhad, at the battle of Ahzaab, to the Banu Qurayza tribe and during the time of conquering Makkah.
v. Negotiators
After Madinah being well established and when people started recognising it as a powerful state, various delegations started coming to Madinah to come into contract for various political, social and economic reasons. In order to effectively speak and finalise the contracts, the Prophet prepared people for negotiations and finalising the deals.
vi. Spiritual Leaders
During this course of time, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) also created more than 80 top class spiritual leaders and narrators, who could take the mission of Islam forward. Some of them are Salam Farsi , Abuzar Ghifari , Huzaifa bin Alyaman , Khabbab bin Arat , Saeed bin Amir , Abdullah ibn Masood, Abu Hurairah, Abdullah bin Umar, Musab bin Umair, Uthman ibn Madhun, Abu Ubaida, Salim Mawla Abi Hudhayfah, Miqdad ibn al-Aswad, etc.
CRUCIAL AREAS OF HRD
The following are the crucial areas of Human Resource Development:
i. Youth
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) was an efficient leader and a visionary; he strove for developing the human resource required to carry out the mission of Islam. Through his efforts and cautious HRD process many people joined him in a very young age and later continued the mission of Islam and contributed extensively to its development for decades, namely, Ali (10 years), Abdullah bin Umar (13 years), Uqba bin Amir (14 years), Jabir bin Abdullah (15 years), Zayd bin Harisa (15 years), Abdullah bin Masood (16 years), Habbab bin Aret (16 years), Zubayr bin Awwam (16 years), Talha bin Ubaydullah (17 years), Abdurrahman bin Awf (17 years), Arkam bin Abil-Arkam (17 years), Saad bin Abi Wakkas (17 years), Asma bint Abu Bakr (17 years), Maaz bin Jabal (18 years), Musab bin Umair (18 years), Abu Musa al-Ashari (19 years), Jafer bin Abu Talib (22 years), Osman bin Huwayris , Osman bin Affan , Abu Ubayda , Abu Hurairah and Umar (25 to 31 years).
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) motivated the youth to struggle and strive for Islam. He once said, “On the Day of Judgement, the people who have spent their youth in worshiping Allah will be in the shade of Allah’s throne” (Bukhari). He said, “Allah loves the youth who pass their youth in obedience to Him”, and “Allah loves the youth who repents” (Ajluni, Kashful Khafa). He also said, “On the Day of Judgement, the feet of the person will not move until he answers five questions and one of them will be where he spent his youth” (Tirmidhi).
Due to these warm and motivational sayings of the Prophet, the young companions matured to the point of sacrificing their lives, property, and families to the path of Allah. They all were ready to sacrifice in spite of the oppression, terrible torture and hunger they received from the Makkans and their families in particular. They not only dared to leave Makkah, but when the time came they even dared to leave this world. Thus, these sayings also contributed to the development of human resource.
ii. Family Members
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) started the work of developing human resource from his house itself. Aisha was the wife of Prophet Muhammad. She learned religious sciences from him. She benefited from the teachings of the Prophet, day and night. Listening to his teachings and conversations, she immediately asked and learned anything she did not understand or was curious about or did not know. Due to the spiritual enlightenment that she received from the Prophet, Aisha became the most distinguished teacher of Islamic principles. Not only reporting the Sunnah and commenting on it, at the same time she put forth the mentality of scholastic criticism on the matter of it being understood correctly.
Due to her strong memory, she rendered unequalled service to the transmission of hadith and Sunnah to the later generations. With around 2210 hadiths that she reported, she stands at the fourth position among the seven companions who have reported highest number of hadiths. The greatest female scholar, Aisha has the most distinguished place among the many representatives of Islamic scholastic mentality. Not only a transmitter of hadith, at the same time she was a commentator on the Qur’ān, an expert on standard law and a preacher. She possessed deep knowledge in the fields of Arabian history, Ansab (genealogy), poetry and medicine. Just as she was certain of the hadiths she related, she evaluated the reports that reached her according to high Islamic culture and, regardless of who the transmitters were, she fully performed the duty of correcting mistakes or omissions in them.
PROVIDING OPPORTUNITIES FOR HRD
Human resource is developed by giving people opportunities and environment, to do things in which they are good at or in which they are interested in, so that they can gain experience and become more proficient in the task. When the Muslims of Madinahh requested the Prophet to send a preacher for teaching them the fundamentals of Islam, the Prophet selected Musab bin Umair for this purpose. The Prophet selected Musab bin Umair because of his soft speech, which was required for the task he was assigned.
On reaching Madinah, Musab bin Umair began to perform the duty entrusted to him with all the sagacity necessary for a preacher. He went from door to door to convince the people for the message of Islam. Initially he talked to each person in terms which the person could understand, and then presented to him the message of Islam at the right moment. He recited before the people selected ayaat of the Qur’ān, which had a profound effect on their minds. He treated his visitors very politely. Later, Musab bin Umair proved worthy of the confidence reposed in him. This opportunity helped Musab bin Umair to develop his skill and his overall personality as well, who later went on to become the chief negotiator of Muslims.
Maaz bin Jabal became a Muslim at the second Aqaba oath and became subject to the Prophet’s close interest. After the conquest of Makkah, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) appointed him his deputy. After returning from the Tabuk Campaign, he appointed him Governor of Yemen. The Prophet made necessary recommendations as to how he should govern and call people to Islam. He was bestowed with this responsibility at the age of 27 years. This responsibility at a very young age helped him to grow, develop and contribute to Islam in a great manner.
Among the companions, many people grew to great heights from their current level. Bilal from a slave to a chief secretary, Zubair from a street fighter to a brave soldier, Musab bin Umair from a soft spoken person to a chief negotiator, Hamza from a hunter to a battalion commander, Umar from an angry man to a great statesman and Ayesha from a housewife to a narrator, medical practitioner, statistician, etc. All this was the result of effective human resource development by Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him).
When the Prophet attained Prophethood, he was alone and after 23 years when he was delivering the final sermon, he addressed thousands of Muslims. When he died, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) left behind a Muslim Arabia and dedicated companions ready to convey Islam throughout the world. He achieved this end with a handful of self-sacrificing people who previously had not heard of belief or scripture, and who had known nothing of civilised social life, world politics, good morals or self-discipline. He transformed desert tribes engaged in civil wars and unending disputes, and equipped them with belief, sincerity, knowledge, good morals, love of humanity, compassion and activism. They dedicated themselves to the divine cause and the result was an army of light. All this was possible only because of his commitment for Human Resource Development. One of the objectives of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) was to prepare the youth for the reconstruction of society in the light of the Qur’ān and Sunnah after his death and he was very much successful in doing so.
Human Resource Development has always been on the forefront in achieving the mission of any nation, religion or tribe. The mission of Islam can only be achieved when we have capable people to take the task forward and capable people can only be created when we have a well-planned system for development of human resource. If we want to establish the law of Allah the Exalted on the face of the earth, we need to give utmost importance to human resource development.