[COLUMNIST] Prof M Kamal Hassan’s Transformative Leadership Towards Malaysia Madani

FEBRUARY 23, 2024, we mourned the one-year anniversary of the departure of esteemed luminary Professor Muhammad Kamal Hassan, a true prodigy of knowledge, a beacon of hope and a moral compass to humanity — a loss that can never be fully compensated.

Nevertheless, his timeless wisdom continues to fatherly guide us in becoming a better version of society, a community of Justice, Goodness, Moral Excellence, and Just Balance, as echoed by the Malaysia MADANI.

Though not new, the MADANI vision for a humane economy emerged at a critical juncture for Malaysia. Regrettably, through both casual observation and rigorous analysis, it's clear that our nation has been steadily veering towards a failed state over the decades (refer to “Becoming the citadel of corruption, paving the way to a failed state”) or, in the words of the late Prof. Kamal Hassan, “deplorable moral decay in the arena of politics and governance.”

Obviously, a new leadership paradigm is imperative to breathe the real spirit into the noble MADANI vision, given the nation’s inherited lamentable state marked by such indicators as rivalrous political disunity and political instability; ugly, ethnoreligious polarisation that includes overall national disunity and extreme fragmentation within the Malaysian Muslim community; and resulting unclear direction for the national development agenda manifesting itself as national food security insecurity, increasing youth unemployment and underemployment, shrinking industry and economic activities, extreme technological dependency, brain drain, increasing climate vulnerability, extensive corruption and leakages.

This state is a substantial phenomenon in its own right, prompting the question: What factors could contribute to it?

Apparently, it is symptomatic of an inner crisis of the political leaders and followers.

Specifically, it is everything that leadership is NOT—an excellent account of this is in the monumental work of the late Prof. Kamal Hassan, “Corruption and Hypocrisy in Malay Muslim Politics: The Urgency of Moral-Ethical Transformation,” akin to a final will and testament for the new generation of leaders within the Muslim community in Malaysia.

This leadership antipode, characterised by extreme materialism, egoism, narcissism, intellectual arrogance, self-delusion, lack of moral-ethical integrity (even complete loss of RASA MALU), highly hypocritical conduct, double/multiple standards, and Machiavellian pragmatism—where the doctrine of "the end justifies the means" is upheld—alongside the relentless pursuit of political power and prestige by key leaders through divisive identity politics devoid of consideration for spiritual or ethical values, has evolved over 60 decades and significantly intensified in the past five years. Prof. Kamal Hassan swiftly proves this in his book's introduction as a shared concern among citizens, including monarchs, scholars, leaders, authors, and the public.

The common denominator among these characteristics is the pervasive presence of nauseating self-centeredness. There is nothing about the people, the nation, its integrity, and its sustainable and resilient future.

Obviously, with such a doldrum, a transformation is way overdue.

As a concerned educator shaping future national leaders, Prof. Kamal extensively explores servant leadership, transformational leadership, and moderation, among other vital leadership concepts, throughout his academic career.

Yet, his notions of impactful leadership never coalesced into such a crystallized, refined, and monolithic framework until his latest seminal scholarly manuscript. This work, warmly embraced by Malaysian society, has garnered significant traction for its timely insights.

Despite its reception, some profound ideas within may have been overlooked. Thus, the “Tauhidic Paradigm of Leadership,” as Prof. termed it, is reconstructed here (Figure 1) derived through a meticulous qualitative analysis of his pivotal manuscript, employing a constant comparative thematic content analysis method.

The extreme right-hand side in Figure 1 is the phenomenon we aim to ascertain—the desirable outcomes and intergenerational impacts essential for our nation's collective prosperity.

According to Prof. Kamal’s conceptualisation, the first and foremost factor contributing to such success is a leader’s strong faith (of course, we are talking here about the Islamic faith), equivalent to being duty-bound to seek resolutions to any disputes and problems primarily from the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad to ensure that leadership efforts align with divine guidance and earn Allah's blessings.

And, while contemporary challenges often necessitate independent reasoning, their outcomes must still adhere to the principles of the Quran and Sunnah. This is why unshakable faith must be further reinforced by (or rather mutually reinforced with) the well-entrenched and invigorated TAQWĀ (profound constant consciousness of Allah SWT and God-fearing) – a revolutionary key criterion for human nobility and leadership qualification, introduced by Allah SWT Himself.

Allah SWT has unequivocally stated that Believers characterized by taqwā will receive the full benefits of Divine guidance, bounties, and positive assurances. At the same time, key traits of the most God-fearing include unwavering faith. Therefore, taqwā and strong faith are clearly independent but mutually related constructs.

Profoundly, it is clear from the Qur’an that when faith is strengthened by taqwā, Believers will not only behave with good moral and ethical conduct (another important construct – “virtuous character” in Figure 1), but they can reach an elevated stage of spiritual development and spiritual proximity to Allah SWT, such that they become the fortunate recipients of many wonderful Divine bounties, blessings and assistance! In other words, such leaders, while solving numerous challenging socio-economic problems, can now tap not only into their own knowledge, experience, various resources and power but into the direct assistance of Allah SWT — the Divine assistance will be sent to remove any obstacles, provide help, support and guidance from Allah SWT Himself. If this fails to evoke goosebumps, then what will?

Meanwhile, the virtuous character has too numerous indicators to list comprehensively, including (but not limited to) the following: possessing and practising the principles of justice, spiritual-moral-ethical integrity, benevolence and spiritual beauty, balance, trustworthiness and responsibility, modesty, humility, simplicity, sincerity, generosity, courage, forgiveness, tolerance, forbearance, selflessness that sincerely puts the interest of those entrusted above self, readiness to strive and sacrifice time, own money and energy for furthering the cause of Allah SWT, accountability to Allah SWT, self-criticism and opposition to fanfare, vanity and praise.

All types of intelligence quotients studied diligently in Organizational Leadership and Strategic Management sciences also fall within this construct of praiseworthy moral conduct.

RASA MALU is another important integral part of good character—bashfulness, shyness, shamefulness, and modesty, instead of any other spiritual-moral value, are deliberately specified in Islam as a branch of faith (the most important practical manifestation of Islamic faith) underscoring that virtuous character is nothing but part and parcel of strong faith (hence mutual relationship in Figure 1).

Virtuous character isn't just recommended or secondary to the visions we aspire to achieve for our society; it embodies the very spirit that animates our visions!

Furthermore, as obedient servants of Allah SWT, Muslims are supposed to live at the preferred level of Believer—Praiseworthy Character—God-Consciousness (with the unity of all three). However, they should strive to develop these characteristics, the interplay of which we see in Figure 1, to the level of Lovers of Allah SWT—that wonderful stage when a believer turns into nothing but a “tool of Allah”. Such a leader simply cannot do wrong and gets all the divine assistance! Simply imagine leaders of such calibre! Goosebumps and nothing else.

Importantly, the profound sense of moral excellence resides solely within our hearts. Therefore, any individual, particularly leaders, must possess a pure heart or "sound and clean hearts" (qulūb salīmah), as Prof. always emphasised. Meanwhile, egoism, greed, intellectual arrogance, narcissism, duplicity, delusions and craving for worldly power, influence, status and wealth (everything opposite to Virtuous Character) grow out of diseased spiritual hearts as opposed to qulūb salīmah.

It is crucial to emphasize that, considering the significance of a pure heart and God-consciousness within this paradigm, it is imperative for leaders to continually fortify them: the pure heart through spiritual purification (self-introspection, self-reform, self-purification, self-transformation and moral-spiritual growth, in accordance with the teachings of the Qur’an and the Sunnah), while the God-consciousness through increasing one’s knowledge.

Knowledge will not only strengthen God-consciousness but also help leaders at all levels in society devise impactful intervention programmes backed by data, science, and economics to achieve positive, sensible outcomes and lasting intergenerational impacts for the nation.

These leaders should be strong advocates and practitioners of the Input-Output-Outcome-Impact model (Figure 2). In other words, when policymakers embark on an initiative, they must convince us, the public, that there is a solid basis in the form of empirical evidence and an established body of scientific knowledge to believe that spinning out an N amount of resources on specific outputs will result in the desired outcomes and intergenerational impacts.

Also, Muslim political parties and leaders have the moral and religious obligation to ensure that whatever objectives or goals they have set for themselves, the political parties or the nation are in harmony with or do not contradict any of the principles or goals of Ummah Wasaṭ, which, according to Prof., is best translated as “the State of Being Just, Best, and Balanced” – being in equilibrium and avoiding extreme orientations towards laxity on the one hand and excessiveness on the other hand while also upholding the principle responsibility of enjoining the good and prohibiting the bad.

Finally, Prof. Kamal Hassan maintains that the transcendent worldview or the worldview of Tauhid is the bedrock element that influences all other constructs in this leadership framework (Figure 1). This is because many crucial aspects of leadership discussed thus far and many other concepts essential for humanity to thrive are already available in the worldview of Tauḥīd, but they have to be consciously adopted and articulated!

When the antipode of this transformative leadership took root and intensified in our society, as discerning observers, we must recognise that a heightened pursuit of power for power might be a stark indicator of diminishing national resources after decades of irresponsible leadership. It is known that in times of resource scarcity, the fervour for control naturally amplifies.

Hence, it is imperative that we harbour significant concern about these developments, for they underscore the urgency of adopting a transformative leadership paradigm!

Yes, there is strong hope that the MADANI vision can transcend the past and chart a path towards a brighter future.

However, its realisation hinges on our ability to embrace and internalise this integrated approach to transformational leadership. As a leader of profound knowledge, moral integrity, and unwavering dedication to just balance principles, Professor Kamal Hassan's model offers a blueprint for our collective journey forward.

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Dr Rais Hussin is the Founder of EMIR Research, a think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research, and a faithful student of Prof Muhammad Kamal Hassan.

** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.

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