Role of Islamic System of Education in Moral Behavior and Spiritual Identity of Muslims

Humans have always had the curiosity to know themselves, to know the world around them, and to know their place in the world. Morality, spirituality and religion are closely intertwined, ‘certain moral ideas became united with certain religious and spiritual ideas to such an extent as to become indistinct from them’. The role of religion in educational institutions is one of the most sensitive and volatile topics on the political and legal landscape now a days especially in country like Pakistan which has been created on religious ideology. The Islamic Way of Life is based on this unique approach to life and a peculiar concept of man's place in the Universe. Islam has provided mankind with the highest possible standard of morality. This moral code, which is both straightforward and practical, provides the individual with innumerable ways to embark upon and then continues the path of moral evolution. By making divine revelation the primary source of knowledge, moral standards are made permanent and stable. The first part of the paper is about the relationship between education and its role as spiritual and moral tool of training. Second part deals with the concept of education in Islam and third part will present types of knowledge in Islam and their application as moral and spiritual tool of education. Last part will give moral and spiritual training methodology in Islamic education. The relationships between ‘moral’, ‘spiritual’ and ‘religious’ seem to be akin to the relationships between the cluster ‘social’, ‘human’ and ‘political’. In each of these clusters, only beings of the kind appropriately described by the middle term can engage in activities which could be properly described by the first and third terms. Islam as religion of spirituality and morality gives a frame work to educate and train the students in modeling their life as more moral and spiritual with practical application in this life and success in the hereafter. The chief characteristic of the Islamic Concept of Life is that it does not admit a conflict, nay, not even a significant separation between life-spiritual and life-mundane. It does not confine itself merely in purifying the spiritual and the moral life of man in the limited sense of the word. Its domain extends to the entire gamut of life. It wants to would individual life as well as the social order in healthy patterns, so that the Kingdom of God may really be established on the earth and so that peace contentment and well-being may fill the world as water f ills the oceans.  

Workplace Stress: Causes, Effects and Participatory Management Interventions in Manufacturing Organizations

Global competitiveness has affected organizations in a number of ways. Thereupon, it is evident that the health and quality of work-life of employees have been influenced. In this respect, work-stress management has become a serious concern for individuals and organizations. Recent literature identifies that central issues are capturing a more in-depth insight into workstress phenomenon and development of well-structured and systematic approaches for its prevention. Accordingly, this study aims at exploring the causes and effects of work-stress among the employees of manufacturing sector organisations; and developing and validating a participatory based stress management intervention framework.For the purpose, data was collected from the employees (N=3307) of 60 manufacturing organizations in Pakistan where Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10) was used to measure the perceived level of stress and two self-designed instruments for investigating causes and effects of work-stress (34 items and 22 items respectively) were used. Besides descriptive, reliability, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) analyses information gathered was examined through partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The causes were hypothesized with perceived stress where path model testing results revealed six significant causes which in significance order are: Social Working Environment; Work-Family Conflict; Role Clarity; Work Characteristics; Management Support at Work; and Training and Career Development. Perceived stress hypothesized with the five consequences yielded all the relationships significantly strong; amongst Psychological Effect was found as the most significant. In addition, a participatory stress management interventions framework, based on a five-step approach (auditing stress, analyse, action plan, implementation, and organizational learning) was developed where stakeholders’ involvement especially employees’ participation and continuous improvement through organizational learning process were the prominent features. A validation case study was carried out at a manufacturing industry where comparative analysis of the situation in terms of the perceived level of stress, causes, effects and their underlying correlations at pre and post-intervention stages were investigated. The results confirm that the proposed participatory intervention strategy is an effective approach for work-stress prevention as its implementation resulted in the decrease of the perceived level of stress. The percentage of employees having severe stress decreased from 30% to 16%; and that of moderate from 21.2% to 18.9%.It is concluded that work-stress is a complex phenomenon where multiple causes and their effects are significantly linked with each other, so a holistic approach is necessary to design and implement advantageous interventions. Moreover, interventions like the development of stress reporting mechanisms, ergonomics workplace design, promotion of socialization and recreational activities, and improvement in hygiene conditions have been found effective. ‘Participatory Approach’ helps us to explore possibilities for worthwhile improvement through employees’ active participation; however, employees’ trust and management commitment are challenges for the realization of the benefit.