Faith-Conscious Stocktaking: Aligning the Heart For Us To Lead
– How leaders can internalize muhasabah in the workplace with sincerity and clarity
THE QUIET WORK OF RETURNING TO OURSELVES
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:
- Awareness. Become aware of what belongs to oneself and what one owes. Distinguish what comes from Allah and what one does for oneself.
- Comparison. Every blessing is a favour. Every disfavour is an act of justice. Prior to drawing this comparison, a person is totally unaware of one’s own reality and the Lordship of one’s Creator. The comparison shows a person that the soul is the source of every flaw and evil and that the soul ignorantly embarks on wrongdoing.
- Humility. Stocktaking relies primarily on self-doubt. To think well and highly of oneself precludes proper examination and leads to confusion. People of firm resolve, and good insight pray most for forgiveness immediately after doing some good thing, such as voluntary prayer or fasting. They realise that despite what they do, they remain short of fulfilling their duties.
