Islamic thoughts on societal planning and management

Abstract

This conference has undertaken to examine The Islamic Approach to Technological Development. Technological development has two dimensions the hardware and the software. I have chosen to look into the realm of Islamic 'software' in terms of development particularly societal development. The 'software' here would include some of the basic tenets of Islam, and social thoughts of some Muslim scholars as inspired by the Islamic ideology. I cannot claim to be an original researcher on Islamic tenet, principles and values, nor do I dare offer any new interpretation of those. Much of the materials in this paper are based on absorbing works of other Muslim scholars. What I have tried to achieve in this paper is to present a platform consisting of thoughts of some of the prominent Muslim thinkers of the past and the present, which appeal to me as very relevant for societal planning, and on which other Muslim thinkers, leaders, and planners may like to give further thoughts. Whenever I have referred to Islamic tenets on my own accord, are those which, I trust, are common knowledge to all Muslims. My hopes and aspiration in writing this paper has been that Muslims by faith are members of one community; we should not land ourselves into any controversy, rather on the contrary conference should serve as one of the sources of intellectual unity, and pave the way for us to forge ahead as a world community of harmony, peace, progress and leadership.