Crisis and disaster management in the light of the Islamic approach: COVID‐19 pandemic crisis as a model (a qualitative study using the grounded theory)

• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Author: Nawal A. Al Eid,Boshra A. Arnout
• Date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2217

ACADEMIC PAPER

Crisis and disaster management in the light of the Islamic

approach: COVID-19 pandemic crisis as a model (a qualitative

study using the grounded theory)

Nawal A. Al Eid

1

|Boshra A. Arnout

2,3

1

Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of

Arts, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman

University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

2

Department of Psychology, King Khalid

University, Abha, Saudi Arabia

3

Department of Psychology, Zagazig

University, Zagazig, Egypt

Correspondence

Boshra A. Arnout, Department of Psychology,

King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia.

Email: prof.arnout74@gmail.com; beahmad@

kku.edu.sa

The current study sought to generate a theory from the data on crisis management in

Islam, and also aimed to identify the strategies used by leaders in the crisis manage-

ment process. The grounded theory approach was applied, which is one of the quali-

tative designs. The content of the verses of the Noble Qur'an and the hadiths of the

Prophet Muhammad that dealt with the issue of crises were analyzed. The results of

the qualitative analysis of the verses of the Qur'an and the hadiths of the Prophet's

noble Sunnah have resulted in four concepts that constitute a broad conceptual the-

ory of crisis management according to the Islamic approach. These concepts are: Cri-

sis management strategies in Islam, the stages of crisis management, the

characteristics of a leader who manages crises, and the roles of a leader during the

crisis management process. A number of assumptions have been made of this gener-

ated theory about Islamic crisis management model. In light of the results of this

study, recommendations were formulated that indicate the necessity of training

leaders in the Islamic approach to crisis management, its strategies and its scientific

steps in crisis management. These results have wide applications in the field of train-

ing leaders, and also recommend future studies to verify the assumptions of the the-

ory that emerged from the data in this study on crisis management in Islam (COVID-

19 pandemic crisis as a model).

1|INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL

BACKGROUND

In light of recent events in the 21st century, it is becoming extremely

difficult to ignore the existence of wars, crisis, and disasters, that

which led us to call the 21st century as a century of crises, given the

changes it witnessed in the various political, economic, demographic,

health, and environmental aspects of life, including the outbreak of

the pandemic of COVID-19, which affected human life within the

social entity, educational, and professional. Indeed, there crises added

major challenges for individuals, institutions and decision-makers, so

facing these crises are necessary to avoid more human, material, and

moral losses. The crisis is a dangerous and unexpected threat to the

goals of individuals, institutions, and nations.

Evidence suggests that the lives of nations and peoples are not

without crises that recur throughout the ages. Throughout history,

peoples and civilizations have faced adversity at various levels, includ-

ing what has claimed complete civilizations, including what they have

faced until they are gone, and Islamic history abounds with many of

the ordeals that the nation has gone through since the dawn of the

message and until today, the nation has weakened at times and

emerged from it more often in promises. Crisis management depends

on the savvy and efficient decision-makers during these crises. One of

the crises that the world is going through today is the COVID-

Received: 8 May 2020Revised: 15 May 2020Accepted: 5 June 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2217

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reprodu ction in any medium,

provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Public Affairs published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2217.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of14

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2217