World Congress on Middle Eastern
Studies III
Barcelona, Spain
July 19-24, 2010
Leadership in Crisis: The Islamic model Abu-Bakr
By
Mazin S. Motabagani, Ph.D.
Al-Madinah Center for the Study of
Orientalism
Introduction
Few years ago, I submitted a proposal to an international
conference in the field of Middle Eastern Studies titled “The World’s need for
Political Leadership: Abu_bakre an Islamic Example.” The reason for that choice
was the many articles published in Western media and transmitted to Arab
readership through some columnists complained that the present day leadership
all over the world lacked the qualities possessed by the historical leadership
in the West such as Churchill, Eisenhower, Kennedy, George Washington or even
Hitler. Also Arab leaders were cited such as Jamal Abdul Naser, King Faisal
of Saudi Arabia and King Hussain of
Jordon. Here I thought at that time that
our historical Islamic leaders were not
mentioned at all, even though we have great leaders by any standards.
The subject was turned down
by that conference in spite of having a Muslim scholar who lived in the West
for more than thirty years review my proposal to check that the proposal fits
the academic criteria of an objective proposal. Anyhow when the chance came to
submit a proposal to this conference I went back to ht old proposal and changed
few sentences here and there and changed the title and without consulting
anyone I sent it. Luckily the proposal was not only accepted but the organizing
committee proposed that a whole panel be devoted to this topic and asked me to
invite three scholars to join me in the panel.
Abu-Bakr faced a situation
of total chaos and if it wasn’t for the
leadership qualities of Abu_Bakre order would have been impossible to
restore.
Since the paper is about
leadership in crisis and Abu-Bakre then this paper will be divided into two
main sections:
Firstly: A brief biography
of Abu Bakr
Secondly: The definition of
political crisis and how did Abu-Bakr handled these crisis?
Thirdly :Conclusion and
references.
Section
One
A brief Biography of Abu-Bakr
Abu Bakr was the first man
to embrace Islam amongst men. He was a close friend of the Prophet whose
qualities of honesty and truthfulness were well known to him. So it did not
take him long or in fact he accepted Islam without any hesitation which was
praised and noted as a distinguished character of Abu Bakr. He was remarkably a
positive person because once he became a Muslim he went on to invite his close
friends to Islam. Amongst these were the most important personalities of Islam
such as Othman Ibn Affan, Al-Zubair Ibn Al Awwam Abdurrahman Ibn Awf, Sa'd Ibn Abi Al Waqqas,
and others.
According to Aisha –daughter
of Abu Bakr and wife of the Prophet- Abu Bakr was white , thin and narrow
shouldered. His face was bony, deep eyed and his forehead was clear.
Abu Bakr
As for his qualities, there
is not much disagreement on the basic qualities of Abu-Bakr. His most outstanding
trait was that of complete faith in Islam and total obedience to the teaching
of the Prophet (PBUH). When the Prophet
(PBUH) was taken to Jerusalem and ascended to the heavens the Makkans thought
that they can shake the faith of Abu Bakr by telling him this unbelievable
story, once they told the story he only said:" If he had said that I would
believe him". He was known as a lenient person. During the days of the
Prophet he would always take the more lenient position in contrast to the
positions taken by Omar Ibn Al-Khattab.
Abu Bakr was very close to
the Prophet (PBUH) to the degree he was considered his minister along with
Omar. It was narrated that the Prophet had said addressing Abu Bakr and
Omar:" If you two agreed on a matter I would not disagree with you.' Ali
Ibn Abi Taleb May Allah be pleased with – The fourth rashidi Caliph- " We
always used to say: The Prophet came along with Abu Bakr and Omar"
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