By Bilal Hassam

“Prophetic Leadership” – Windsor Castle – April 2015
Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad / Timothy J. Winter

“…To be Prophetic is to be counter cultural, to be a dissident; you simply can’t be Prophetic if you’re driving round in the Sultans Bentley. To be Prophetic you must be, by definition, difficult for those in power… perhaps even eccentric.

The Prophet Muhammad turned his back on the deleterious social values of his society and for this his people were tortured, exiled and many killed. He didn’t go along with the establishment of his age, he called it to account, and he was radical in his embodying of this.

There is no one model of Prophetic leadership, no one checklist, but these basic attributes are perhaps the ones most bereft in our society today. We are all clamouring to be popular, we need to stop trying to make religion look good in order to please the secular modern world and in doing so displease God

His character surprised and derided his enemies. His kindness to animals was for example such a radical shift of what the Arabs were used to, his servant Anas bin Malik would say the Prophet served him more than he did, his widow Ayesha when asked how we was in the house spoke of how he would sweep the floor, stictch his clothes, serve his family and wouldn’t allow for a single coin to stay under his roof overnight; finding someone needy deserved of it.

Prophetic leadership thinks laterally and transcends the tit for tat mondial cultures we have created. He dealt with people gently, with perfection and beauty yielding the softening elixir of the Divine…”

(Paraphrased and interspersed with my notes!)

Discussion with Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders at The University of Cambridge Coexist Leadership Programme hosted by Windsor Castle / St Georges House