Lessons in Leadership from the Life of the Prophet Muhammad: Arabic Knowledge@Wharton ( http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/arabic/article.cfm?articleid=2540)

Lessons in Leadership from the Life of the Prophet Muhammad
Published October 05, 2010 in Arabic Knowledge@Wharton

The Leadership of Muhammad is a new book by British management scholar John Adair that mines the life of the Prophet Muhammad to highlight his extraordinary qualities as a leader. According to Adair, success is a function of leadership, and his short work provides anyone interested in learning how to lead and motivate with a wealth of insight, according to this review by Muqtedar Khan, an associate professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware.

Over the years, Muslim and non-Muslim historians have written many books about Prophet Muhammad as a leader, highlighting the divinely guided qualities of his personality as the final messenger of God, according to Islamic beliefs. But in the past century or so, a modernist, rationalist school of Islamic thought has emerged, which focuses on examining Prophet Muhammad as a charismatic leader as well as being the messenger of God. Developed by thinkers like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Shibli Nomani in India and Sheikh Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida in the Arab world, this school seeks to minimize the miraculous nature of the Prophet's biography to explore the rationalist and humanist dimensions of his personality. Their interpretations are formed by many categories that guides modern thinking -- the Prophet Muhammad as statesman, as a businessman, as a political leader and a spiritual guide. British management scholar John Adair's new book, The Leadership of Muhammad, joins this body of work, even though he is not a modernist Muslim. But Adair's interpretation is different from most Muslim biographers of Prophet