A "classic" problem of services doing acquisition

My father is in a services industry business. What I can do here is perform a little brainstorming exercise with my deary readers. Here's a dilemma they face or problem, more appropriately, when acquiring "knowledge", "skills" by hiring or purchasing a company or consultants, especially when a company overtakes another through merger: The knowledge you think you're buying may walk out the door, in words of Davenport and L Prusak*. How fickle are human assets really :] How do we deal with this "classic" problem?

* See "Working Knowledge", by these authors.

Personal Temperament & Religion

"We pick and choose points from Religion according to our own temperaments and likings. Then we give these selected points central importance to which every other aspect of Religion is just peripheral in our mind." To give you a personal example: Yesterday, I was going through the archives of Cambridge Khutabs of Shaykh Abdal-Hakim Murad (Muslim sermons and talks in English). I saw a variety of topics there: Such titles as 'resisting injustics', 'humility', 'compassion', 'purity of heart', etc. appealed to me least, mournfully; But such titles, 'Islamic perspectives on gender', 'corruption on earth', 'islam and modernity', 'God, science and atheism', which have least business to do with my own self, my own ethical character, interested me most. I evaded the former ones, accepted the later ones. It speaks for itself what kind of a Muslim I must be.

This happens, what the quote already quoted points to, perhaps, with most of us, especially those who appear to be much more religious than others. It can be a grave problem and an intellectual disease, if it blinds us to the whole truth. The real true, or Truth (al-haqq) should be our goal, not that what is more appealing to our nafs.

Conduct Disorder

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans showed aggressive adolescents reacted strongly in two parts of the brain when watching pain inflicted on others. Arousal occurred in the ventral striatum, the area responsible for feeling empathy. But an even stronger reaction occurred in the amygdala, the area that responds to feeling rewarded. The scans caused researchers to hypothesize that aggressive youths may enjoy watching others in pain.

Credit: University of Chicago.

I came to know about child conduct disorder from some notes of my classmate on criminal psychology, and immediately I found it to be useful. I have some young friends who are like brothers to me, and whom I watch to recall my own near-past, always thinking how I can make their emaan and ihsan better than I had. Most people of my age seemed to have developed tastes and interests too vile, sterile, and loathsome in their speech, rhetoric, and actions that thoughts of associating myself with them seem to be remote - I look for innocence and above human fitra. And I sometime childishly wonder if it really exists? Alhamdulillah it does. I see it in these kids, free of all prejudices, hatred, skepticism, kufr, and what really not. However, some of these friends of mine seem to have symptoms of conduct disorder, which if persist can in later stages of their lives turn into a serious problem called anti-social personality disorder. Now I am up to detecting if they really have any kind of conduct disorder, so that they can be sent to some good psychiatrists, who believe in counseling (and not primarily in medication). People generally here are very ignorant of psychological problems.

I think of this activity as more important than my studies, which are concerned with my future. I like to think that I would be relieved to relive my brothers who are in grievances. I would be happier by making their families proud of them. I would be elated by freeing them from depressions. A momin feels the the pain of another as his own, so how can he let the pain cripple his own body. With these spirits our social life is regulated, based on mercy, compassion, care and profundity.

And. No appreciation of the matter, i.e., psychological problems, may be made if we do not show this version of classical school bullying...

O man! what has deluded you from your Generous Lord?

Quran says in chapter no. 2, verse 28, 29, asking man to use his intellect (al-aql) to surrender before the Truth most evident, then how can one deny it?; and may it just not become unclear to us like that moon which seemed to be fogged high in the sky once on a clear dark night:

Ch # 2: Verse # 28: How can you refuse to acknowledge Allah [when your very existence is a living evidence of the Creator. There was a time when you were a thing not worth mentioning (76:1)] You were lifeless and He it is Who gave you life [and made you worthy of being addressed as 'you' (32:9)] Then He will cause you to die and then bring you back to life again whereupon unto Him you will be made to return. (40:11, 7:25, 22:66, 26:81, 30:40, 45:26, 71:17-18) (2:281, 10:56, 32:11)

2:29: He it is Who created for you all, everything that is in or on the earth; then He directed His design to the regions above (the earth) and fashioned them suitably into seven layers of the atmosphere (67:3, 71:15)(11:7, 17:44, 23:86, 41:11-12, 57:4, 65:12); He knows all about everything, (truly and
certainly).

God reserves the right to wonder as to inquire: O man ! what has beguiled you from your Lord, the Generous (or Gracious) one? Seriously...

Two Devastating Causes of Muslims' Disintegration

Image source

Muslims should not fall apart. They are not here to disintegrate. They are the best Ummah. They command good and forbid evil. But why have they disintegrated? Why there condition is most pathetic of all the nations of this world?

Sheikh ul Hind, Maulana Mahmood Hasan, after getting free by the grace of God from the harsh and oppressive imprisonment in Malta by the Britishers, happened to find himself in a company of a group of scholars in Deoband. What else could he say to them other then presenting the fruits of this arduous experience, i.e., the wisdom (hikmah) extracted. He said to them that from this whole experience of Malta he had learned (only) two lessons. The scholars around him became attentive as to what could be those two important lessons the leader (imam) of scholars of his time had learned. The Shakyh said: I have learned that two things have destroyed us (Muslim Ummah): one is our abandoning of Quran; and second is the disunity among us. (From Ikhtilaaf Rehmat Hai.) Firqabandi is haram for us, proclaims Mufti Rafi Usmani.

We are not people of argumentation. Those who wish or try to disperse us are shaitaan, devils. Yet the balance is needed, which can be better understood from the little booklet already quoted and the following lecture by Hamza Yusuf. Insha Allah!