Alhamdulillah, grateful for the opportunity to be invited as a speaker for the International Qur’anic Leadership Programme (IQ-LEAD), organised by Huffaz Frontiers Leadership, IIUM, in collaboration with NAMA Foundation, to speak on Team Building & Management in Islamic Perspective: "Building a Jamaah"
Around 80 participants joined the session, comprising undergraduate (79%) and postgraduate (21%) students from across the world — Malaysia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, China, and others.
It made the subject of building a jama‘ah feel especially relevant.
I started the session with a simple Mentimeter question:
“Managing people is…”
The two biggest responses?
“Complicated” and “Challenging.”
Indeed!
Technical capability doesn't necessarily prepare us for the complexity of human beings. Yet whether or not we aspire to become “managers”, learning how to work with people is an essential life skill — in our workplaces, families, communities, volunteer organisations and friendships.
So instead of approaching management purely through contemporary frameworks, we explored one of the most fascinating case studies of team-building in history.
How did Prophet Muhammad ﷺ build the community of Madinah?
He had to bring together the Muhajirun and Ansar, Aws and Khazraj, different tribes and personalities, people of different faiths and backgrounds — all while facing tremendous external and internal pressures.
From there, extracting from sirah (history/biography of the Prophet ﷺ), we explored several ideas that remain remarkably relevant to organisations today:
Align people around shared values. Learn to mix with people & learn to tolerate differences without compromising values. Develop, not only good leadership, but excellent followership. Become a “multiplier": bring out the intelligence and potential of others. Learn to see the strengths in people rather than expecting everyone to contribute in exactly the same way.
In the segment "Best vs Worst leaders", students shared what they felt were the key traits of leadership: what can we adapt & learn from it.
One lesson I wanted the students to leave with: Not everyone needs to be the person at the front lines.
The Prophet ﷺ said, that Allah admits three people into Paradise because of one arrow: the person who makes it well, the person who shoots it, and the person who hands it to the archer.
3 people. 3 completely different roles. One shared outcome.
That, to me, is a picture of what a jama‘ah - collective, group, organization - should look like.
Perhaps we spend too much time asking: “How can I become a better leader?”
Maybe we should also ask: “What strengths has Allah given me, and how can I use them to make the jama‘ah around me stronger?”
Because building great teams is not about everyone trying to become the most important person in the room.
It is about everyone learning how to contribute their best — and helping others contribute theirs.
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