Toward An Islamic Administrative Theory

Abstract

Introduction
A comprehensive Islamic theory that can offer complete guidance for
Islamic organizations and help clarify the behavior of organizations, groups,
and individuals is yet to be developed. However, there are many rules relating
to administration which are scattered throughout different Islamic sources.
These rules were utilized in early Islamic society, but were never organized
under specific management concepts as is the case in contemporary management
thought. The quest in recent years for such a theory has been intense,
and there have been frantic efforts by researchers to group different administrative
guidelines from Islamic sources with the intention of forming
an Islamic administrative paradigm, herein called a theory, although it is not
a complete theory.
Ahmed Ibrahim Abu Sin, for example, has tried to identify the basic particulars
or postulates of Islamic administrative theory in his book The Islamic
Administration (1981). He maintains that the characteristic feature of Islamic
theory is its emphasis on all the variables and factors that affect the administrative
cycle in an organization and its understanding of individual
behavior in light of social and cultural forces. Islamic theory sees no separation
between ethics, morality, and administration. The same applies to the
larger Islamic society of which administration is a subsystem.
The basic postulates of Islamic theory and the variables it emphasizes include
the following:
(1) Islamic administrative theory should be closely connected to the social
philosophy of the Islamic system and enforce the moral principles of the larger
Islamic society. (This point is discussed in greater detail below.)
(2) Islamic administrative theory should take into consideration economic
variables and strive to fulfill individuals’ physiological needs ...