The humanistic roots of Islamic administration and leadership for education : philosophical foundations for cross-cultural and transcultural teaching

For a number of decades, a humanistic approach has been a minor but persistent one in the Western field of administrative and leadership studies, and only recently has been broadening to include other humanist traditions (Dierksmeier et al., 2011) and has yet to be fully explored in educational administration and its pedagogy and curriculum although some foundational work has been done (e.g., Samier, 2005). The focus in this chapter is on the Islamic humanist tradition as it relates to the teaching of educational administration and leadership in a Muslim context, with implications for cross-cultural and transcultural use. The second purpose of the chapter is to show the correspondences that exist between the Islamic and Western humanist traditions in terms of human values, knowledge and educational ideal, which in this chapter are argued to be close to the Western Idealist tradition and the German Bildung conception of education as well as the strong interpretive and hermeneutic foundations that originated in the Islamic tradition and which influenced the foundations of many relevant European schools of thought, particularly in the Enlightenment.The initial section of the chapter is a comparative examination of the central principles of the Islamic humanist tradition from the classical through to contemporary times with the Western humanist tradition as they relate to conceptions of the good, ethics, the construction of meaning and a set of higher order values predicated upon human dignity, integrity, empathy, well-being, and the public good (Goodman, 2003) covering a number of important scholars like Al Farabi, al Isfanhani, and Edward Said (e.g., Kraemer, 1986). In both, professions are viewed as meaningful work that allow for large measures of decision making, and are grounded in human qualities and needs including autonomy, freedom and emancipation balanced with responsibilities, obligations and duties to society. These are compared with the corresponding principles of knowledge in Western humanism which includes a strong constructivist view of reality (Makdisi, 1990). Secondly, the chapter examines the principles of good or ideal leadership and administration that humanism aims at in its preparation of officials, including those in the educational sector in both the classical Islamic tradition (Hassi, 2012) and Western approaches to humanistic administration and leadership (Czarniawska-Joerges & Guillet de Monthoux, 1994; Gagliardi & Czarniawska, 2006; Leoussi, 2000). The third section focusses on close correspondences that exist between the Islamic (Afsaruddin, 2016; al-Attas, 1980; Yasin & Jani, 2013) and Western (Aloni, 2007; Veugelers, 2011) humanist education traditions in terms of educational ideal as well as the kind of teaching practices that distinguish these traditions (Daiber, 2013; Dossett, 2014) as they apply to educational administration and leadership (Greenfield & Ribbins, 1993). The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the Islamic humanist tradition can contribute to cross-cultural and transcultural graduate teaching in international educational administration (Khan & Amann, 2013)

Grey water footprint for evaluating Zefta wastewater treatment plant: a case study

The numbers of wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) in Egypt are increasing, yet the general level of pollution associated with wastewater discharge after treatment has not been evaluated. Grey water footprint (GWF) was used to assess the effluent discharges from Zefta WWTP. GWF, before and after treatment, was calculated and followed up to determine its impact on the receiving freshwater body. 150 samples were collected and analysed for BOD5 to determine the optimum operating conditions. Averages values were DO = 2.2, SV30 = 500, SVI  = 167, SA = 9.3 d, MLVSS = 2392 mg/L, f/m = 0.16, MLSS in RAS = 7922 mg/L, WAS = 140 m3/d and the HRT = 12 h. The removal efficiency of COD and TSS in the primary settling tank reached 39% and 69%, respectively. Average calculations of removal efficiency percentile reached 90-93%. Average freshwater quantities required to reduce pollutants in the receiving body stream were seasonally determined for Zefta WWTP as 5.3 × 107 m3/year. The average influent BOD5 was 376 mg/L, it was reduced to 47 mg/L in the effluent, wherever the Cmin is 6 mg/L and Cnat is 10 mg/L. Statistical analysis has shown a significant direct relation between ΔWFG,mef and WFG,ref reached 0.952 and a significant inverse relation with Cef −0.982. WFG,T has shown a significant direct relation with Cr 0.974. WFG,T– ref has shown a significant direct relation with Cr as 0.971 and WFG,T as 0.803. It can be concluded that ΔWF is effective in evaluating the efficiency of wastewater treatment and its effect on the quality of receiving water bodies.</p