بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Welcome to the Rubah blog!
I am Hasannudin Saidin or Coach Hasan,
CEO Coach at Rubah Associates.
I coach CEOs & leaders. I cycle to live long and I watch Star Trek for its humanity. I’m also a community builder.
May the posts here be beneficial.
– How inner awareness and heart purification shape leadership with excellence, fairness and compassion
Leadership with ihsan (excellence) calls us to lead with beauty of conduct, fairness and compassion. It is outer excellence grounded in inner clarity. Technical skills help leaders perform, but with tension or uncertainty, what sustains leadership is emotional steadiness.
Emotional intelligence has become a central idea in modern leadership. Yet long before it was labelled, Prophet Muhammad ﷺ lived its highest form.
Recently I viewed a meaningful conversation on The Barakah Effect Podcast, hosted by Faisal Abdul Latif and his team, featuring guest Muhammad Javed, author of the book Nurturing Emotional Intelligence: The Prophetic Path to Inner Harmony and Personal Growth.
Javed describes emotional intelligence (I use the acronym EI here) as about controlling one’s feelings and emotions, placing them in the driver’s seat of decision-making and behaviour, rather than being controlled by them. It encompasses internal factors like self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-motivation, as well as external factors such as social skills and empathy.
What modern psychology teaches about EI is valuable. What our prophetic tradition teaches goes deeper.
The video excerpt below from the podcast episode exemplifies the heart of prophetic EI:
(If you can’t view the video above, click here.)
Read More “IQ → EQ → EI – Emotional Intelligence Through the Prophetic Lens”– Faith-Consciousizing a popular method of business model generation
BMC here refers to the Business Model Canvas. On a single canvas (page), you get to view nine building blocks of a business. Many strategists, consultants and entrepreneurs use it as a practical, visual tool to design and iterate their business model.
See it mentioned (with a twist) in this short video below, in a recent meetup of Faith-Conscious Professionals:
(If you can’t view the video above, click here.)
In that masterclass on Islamic Entrepreneurship, George Bohlender from Dragonfire Corporate Solutions Sdn Bhd included a spiritual perspective of BMC!
In this newsletter edition, I share (with George’s permission) the “Islamic BMC” template found in his course material and I attempt to interpret and discuss what it means to see the BMC through a faith-conscious lens.
I hope to participate in the entire Islamic Entrepreneurship masterclass in future. For now I revisit the BMC, requesting guidance from George, my other BMC mentors and readers here. I stand corrected, and welcome your comments so that my own BMC can be updated and refined, insha Allah.
The original Strategyzer BMC looks like this:
Read More “Bee Em See…, B.M.C…. : Revisiting BMC With Some Spirituality… !”LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Slowing down becomes a moment of strengthening as leaders rewire with intention (Pic: AFP)
LEADERSHIP is often measured by results, but long-term effectiveness depends on a leader’s ability to renew strength, clarity and purpose. Without renewal, there is a feeling of same-old same old.
Then performance eventually dips, decision-making dulls and leaders drift away from the connection between their responsibilities and their inner compass.
Earlier this year, I underwent bypass surgery. It was a harrowing period that disrupted my routine and momentum. It really tested my resilience as I faced pain and total weakness.
At first I saw it as a medical interruption. It then became a period of deep reflection on what sustains a leader through painful trials and tribulations.
Read More “Rewire, refire, renew: The HEART of leadership – TMR Edition”How Muslim leaders can translate mission-oriented frameworks into faith-conscious strategy
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
(pic: MEDIA MULIA)
IN MY previous article, I challenged us to unlearn defaults entrenched by coloniality and to generate autonomous knowledge rooted in Quranic guidance and Prophetic practice.
Today, I pick up that thread through the lens of strategy frameworks which already exist in the secular world and explore how they might be re-interpreted and re-grounded for faith-conscious leaders.
Lately, I’ve been reading the book Venture Meets Mission by Arun Gupta, Gerard George and Thomas Fewer. It argues that capitalism itself is shifting: From pure profit-seeking to purpose-seeking.
Organisations now talk about aligning people, purpose and profit to create societal transformation. That’s appealing to me. For us Muslim professionals, the question becomes: How do we translate that alignment into strategy that honours Allah, serves mankind and ensures sustainable impact? That is when mission truly meets deen.
Read More “Mission-driven strategy: When faith reframes people, purpose and profit – TMR Edition”
Alhamdulillah. I am grateful to share a meaningful milestone in my leadership journey.
Starting this month (November 2025), I am contributing fortnightly to The Malaysian Reserve (TMR), one of Malaysia’s respected business and financial newspapers. My articles appear in the print edition every other Monday, followed by the online version a few days later. (The print edition is weekly.)
This opportunity emerged naturally and unexpectedly, through conversations and sharings over the past months, especially after my bypass surgery earlier this year. That difficult period reshaped how I viewed purpose, resilience and the inner foundations of leadership. It also deepened my intention to write regularly and offer meaningful reflections to leaders navigating today’s complexities.
TMR’s readership consists of business leaders, policymakers, entrepreneurs, executives and professionals. I hope to bring value to them through practical insights shaped by lived experience, reflection, and the frameworks I have developed over the years.
Read More “A New Chapter: Writing for The Malaysian Reserve”
– How leaders can internalize muhasabah in the workplace with sincerity and clarity
In leadership, strategy and work, we review performance, numbers and outcomes. Yet the most important review often goes untouched: the one inside.
The scholars call self-examination Muhasabah, or Stocktaking.
The book The Wayfarer’s Journey Towards Allah, which is an abridgement of Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah’s Madārij al-Sālikīn, describes Stocktaking as awakening to blessing, responsibility, doubts and duties.
My accountability buddy powerfully summarised three reminders on Stocktaking from the book, as follows:
– How sabr, ikhtiar and tawakkul shape endurance in life and leadership
The IRONMAN Malaysia in Langkawi is one of the world’s toughest endurance events: a 3.8km swim, a 180km bicycle ride and a full 42.2km marathon, all in tropical heat (or rain!) and humidity.
My son-in-law, Rizal Khalid completed not one, but two full IRONMAN races: first in 2022 and again this month in 2025. Both times, his journey became for me a living lesson in faith-conscious resilience.
Enjoy the video of his recent feat:
(If you can’t view the video above, click here.)
Read More “Faith-Conscious Resilience: Lessons from an IRONMAN Journey”
– Continuing reflections on prophetic resilience and modern leadership through hardship
In Part 1 we looked at the first three of the seven lessons extracted from Chapter 12 on adversity from the book Prophet Muhammad ﷺ – The Hallmark of Leadership by Dr. Azman Hussin, Dr. Rozhan Othman and Dr. Tareq Al-Suwaidan.
These were just the seven lessons I saw from the chapter. For more lessons from the rest of the book, I recommend you read the whole book to get an even wider perspective.
For now, we finish with remaining lessons ⓸ to ⓻.
Read More “Leadership in Adversity: Lessons That Endure (Part 2)”
After having recently resuscitated this blog, we are now ready for visitors to subscribe by email to “The Faith-Conscious Leader” newsletter.
For the past 10 weeks, many people have joined me on LinkedIn for the newsletter’s weekly reflections on leading with intention, ihsan (excellence) and purpose.
Now, for readers (including a friend of yours!) who prefer to receive each newsletter article directly by email, you can subscribe right from this blog itself:
In each edition, insha Allah, I continue to explore the inner dimension of leadership: how faith, discipline and meaning shape our choices and impact.
Whether you follow the newsletter on LinkedIn or receive it by email, I keep my intention:
💌 To reconnect faith and leadership, week by week and to learn to lead from inside out, from heart. 💌
Alhamdulillah, “The Faith-Conscious Leader” newsletter continues to grow. Thank you for your reading, encouragement and support along the way.
– How Muslim leaders can translate mission-oriented frameworks into faith-conscious strategy
In my 1st Tuesday previous article, I challenged us to unlearn defaults entrenched by coloniality and to generate autonomous knowledge rooted in Qur’anic guidance and Prophetic practice.
Today I pick up that thread through the lens of strategy frameworks which already exist in the secular world and explore how they might be re-interpreted and re-grounded for faith-conscious leaders.
Read More “Mission-Driven Strategy: When Faith Reframes People, Purpose & Profit”
