SYED KAZIM deals in detail with how effectively the Prophets, especially Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) strived to resolve crises.
Crisis Management is the process by which an organisation deals with a major event that threatens to harm the organisation, its stakeholders, or the general public. Crisis Management consists of different aspects, including methods used to respond to both the reality and perception of crisis, establishing metrics to define what scenario constitutes a crisis and should consequently trigger the necessary response mechanism and communication that occurs within the response phase of emergency management scenario. It often requires decisions to be made within a short time frame, and often after an event has already taken place.
The life of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) is filled with instances relating to crisis management, as during his time the Arabian Peninsula was filled with crisis from the faith, knowledge, intellectual, economy, social, culture, political and governance point of view. Thus, the period was termed as the period of Jahiliyyah.
From the point of view of faith, every one’s faith was corrupted to the core as many people established their own idols and tread them as gods. They were so attached to their belief that they were not ready to hear a single word against their gods as it was the belief of their forefathers. They troubled him, tortured him and offered him worldly pleasures to stop propagating his message. In spite of all this, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) worked hard to make these people believe in the oneness of God. Many a time, as the disagreement became aggressive the Prophet stood in self-control. Later, in course of time, people came to Islam in large numbers and the values of idols began to decline. Later the Arabs began to ask, “Who needs such lifeless and non-self-resistant things?”
Despite dire efforts, his opponents in Makkah could not halt the mission of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him). Given its momentum, the Makkan tribal parliament decided to kill the Prophet. When the Prophet got to know about this, he had two courses of options, one was to fight the enemies and the other was to migrate. If he would have opted for the former option, all would have perished, but the Prophet re-thought, re-assessed and applied post-crisis thinking and finally decided to migrate to Madinah and started doing his work there.
From the knowledge and intellectual point of view, the Arabs were indeed in crisis with respect to knowledge; they possessed very little knowledge about politics and economy. They were more into business rather than gaining knowledge. There were no inheritance of knowledge and most of them were illiterate. According to Al-Baladhuri, Quraisy, Arab is the most advanced tribe among the Arabs and only 17 members of them then could both read and write.
But when the Prophet came, he resolved the crisis by motivating people to gain knowledge, which acted as the base to overcome the other crises as well. The Prophet famously declared that, “The seeking of knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim.” (Tirmidhi) He promised Paradise to parents who involve in the good upbringing of their daughters. In his unlettered and oral society, he encouraged his followers learn writing so to be able to transmit the message of the Qur’ān, far and wide.
The Prophet also encouraged people to go all the way even up to China if they had to seek knowledge. Not surprisingly, it was this initial encouragement which ultimately led to the Islamic golden age of science which advanced medicine, astronomy, algebra and philosophy and also contributed to the Western Renaissance.
From the point of view of the economic system, the financial exploitation swallowed the 6th century in every respect with deep financial crisis. Different kinds of exploitation existed critically and dangerously enough to break the backbone of poor ones. It was a good for nothing system, that existed in the finance sector, which caused the rich to become richer and the poor poorer. That was not a system; it was a type of decay that formed among the aristocratic people. The poor had to stand helplessly with watered eyes in the face of this decay. The trading activity was also unstable due to robbery and the fact that the Arab clans kept fighting with each other.
Since the arrival of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) these kinds of exploitation have been prohibited. When he abolished interest, gambling and financial deception, chilling breeze blew through the minds of the poor. As far as the poor are concerned, the Zakat inexplicably became a blessing. The shortage in the yearly budget had been compensated by Zakat. Madinah changed into a welfare state, which people dreamed of. These principles laid the foundation of the world humanitarianism.
From the social and cultural point of view, people were in complete darkness and in deep crisis. Some proud pagans practised ‘honour’ killings, female infanticide to offset their shame and people used to circumambulate around the Ka’aba naked. But after the advent of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him), the crisis was resolved successfully in a way that immodesty was abolished; it led to the end of ‘honour’ killings, gave birth to the right of a woman’s approval for her marriage, her right to ownership of private property, to seek unilateral divorce if the husband was abusive and to re-marry as a widow or divorcee. Moreover, as the Prophet taught, while a husband was supposed to provide for his wife, the wife was under no obligation to share her wealth or property with the husband.
The Arab society was also a victim of racial discrimination; they had racial biases against non-Arabs. The Prophet managed to purify these primitive sentiments by his personal example. His closest companions’ Bilal bin Riba (an Abyssinian) and Salman Farsi (a Persian) were both former slaves who went on to command enormous respect in the first Muslim society. In the final sermon, the Prophet declared, “A white has no superiority over a black, nor does a black over a white, except by piety and good action,” which helped to avoid any sort of racial discrimination in the future.
There was a huge crisis in politics and governance as well during the period of Jahiliyyah. It could not be considered civilized governance at all. There was no ruling structure and all the states had been colonised. Makkah’s political and governance structure was so unstable that the Yemeni army decided to attack Makkah. The conditions were worse where the region was colonised. The colonisation separated the people into groups and clans which ultimately led to them fighting each other to get recognition and security. After the Prophet, the political system and governance improved, as treaties were signed, compromises were made and the Muslims improved significantly and went from strength to strength.
In other situations as well, the Prophet resolved crises very effectively. For example, when the Prophet and his companions were travelling from Taif to Makkah, the total strength of the people was 12,000 and some were mounted upon horses while others on foot; the group reached a narrow valley, Az-zaiyyiqa. Upon reaching the place, they halted to think how it can be crossed. The Prophet said that since their current formation was horizontally spread, they were finding it difficult to think of how to cross the narrow valley. However, if they were to form themselves vertically, they would be able to manage and pass through. This is an example of crisis management, which depicts man’s response to a new situation by re-assessing and re-thinking. It must be understood that in situations of crisis, pre-crisis thinking does not work. Unless man develops post-crisis thinking, he will not be able to manage the situation.
Similarly, when the Prophet and his companions set out to Makkah to perform Umrah, their opponents in Makkah halted them mid-way at Hudaibiyah and did not allow them to enter Makkah. Here also, the Prophet had the option of violent confrontation. But he chose the method of peaceful negotiation instead. These talks continued for about two weeks and resulted in the signing of a 10-year no-war pact. In order for this peace Treaty to materialise, the Prophet unilaterally agreed to all terms and conditions laid by the Quraysh. In this instance lies a clear example of crisis management. As a result of the treaty, when the opportunities opened up, the activities of the mission caught speed.
It was not only the job of the Prophet to remove the people from crisis but it was also the job of the other Prophets as well. For example, Prophet Nuh strived to resolve the crisis of caste system, Prophet Moosa strived to resolve the crisis of dictatorship, Prophet Hud strived to resolve the crisis of capitalism, Prophet Salih strived to resolve the crisis of faulty leadership, Prophet Ibrahim strived to resolve the crisis of idol worship, Prophet Lut strived to resolve the crisis of homosexuality and Prophet Shuaib strived to resolve the crisis of corruption and blundering. This shows how crisis management is the Sunnah of all Prophets.
Islam also gives us guidance as to what we should do in case of crisis. Allah says in the Qur’ān, “O you who have believed, seek help through patience and Salah. Indeed, Allah is with the patient” (Qur’ān, 2:153). The verse commands people to observe patience and offer Salah as it is the key to overcome any crisis successfully.
The act of maintaining patience, performing Salah, being consistent, being well mannered, imparting knowledge, standing for the poor, promoting humanity, setting practical example, establishing understanding between people, supplicating to Allah and being just, helped Prophet remove the Arabian Peninsula from all forms of crisis. The present-day Muslim community is also stuck in crisis and they do not know how to manage it despite there being ample examples in the life of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him). The mindset is infested with the thought that the world is conspiring against them but they do not understand that their real problem is that they have failed to manage crisis.