Prof Javed Iqbal SAANI

Principal author

Research translated into accessible books

Prof Javed Iqbal Saani is a professor in the School of Management at Asia e University in Malaysia. He is the originator of Islamic Management Theory, a body of work that develops management principles from Quranic guidance and the recorded practice of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

He was born and raised in Pakistan, in Rawalakot in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. He read for a BBA and an MBA in Finance at the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, both with distinction, and was awarded two gold medals for academic performance. The Government of Pakistan then selected him for higher study abroad and funded his doctorate in the United Kingdom. He took an MBA in Information Management at the University of Hull, and completed his PhD in information technology at the University of Salford in 2003.

His academic career began in 1987 as a lecturer in business administration at the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, where he taught until 1998. He joined Iqra University in Islamabad as an associate professor in 2006, moved to the International Islamic University Islamabad in 2012 as head of the Department of Technology Management, and was appointed professor at Al-Khair University in 2015, serving as Dean of the Faculty of Management Sciences.

His earlier research addressed service quality, information systems, project management and research methodology, including published studies of the Pakistani telecommunications sector. Islamic management now occupies the greater part of his writing, and several of his books have been translated into Arabic and published in Algeria. His ResearchGate profile lists 198 publications and 148 citations. The catalogue on this site holds 150 titles.

The argument behind the work

Saani’s central claim is that the Seerah can be read as a record of managerial practice as well as a spiritual and historical one, and that managerial effectiveness cannot be separated from ethical and spiritual grounding. His books examine the Prophet’s ﷺ decisions across events including Badr, Uhud and Hudaybiyyah, and draw from them principles of planning, consultation, motivation and risk that can be applied in contemporary organisations.

He organises Islamic Management Theory around six themes: strategic foresight (basirah), consultation and collective wisdom (shura), discipline and accountability (ihsan and amanah), adaptive planning (tadbeer), motivational equity (adl and rahmah), and transformation grounded in faith. Taken together they are intended to offer Muslim professionals a value-based alternative to secular management frameworks rather than a translation of them.

He draws on both Western management theorists and classical Islamic scholarship, while remaining critical of approaches that separate leadership from ethics and spiritual responsibility. His work proceeds from the conviction that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was not only a spiritual leader but the most effective strategist and manager in human history, and that the success of the early Muslim community rested on planning, ethical governance and faith together rather than on any one of them alone.

Selected works

• Strategy Formulation & Implementation: The IMT Perspective
• Change Management Strategy of the Prophet ﷺ
• Introduction to Islamic Management Theory with AI Assisted Analysis
• Prophet Muhammad as a Planning Expert
• Strategic Management: The Approach of the Prophet
• Transformation Strategy of the Prophet
• Managerial Implications of the Major Expeditions of the Prophet

Teaching and current work

His teaching connects classical texts to present-day managerial problems, treating Quranic principles as material for the boardroom and the classroom rather than for devotional reading alone. He lectures widely and mentors scholars and professionals working towards an Islamic grounding for management education. Recent volumes examine how artificial intelligence can assist in interpreting and disseminating this body of research.