Epistemological obstacles to the application of Western administrative approaches in the management of Arab and Islamic universities

Abstract

This study attempted to clarify the obstacles to the application of Western administrative models or approaches in Arab and Islamic higher education institutions, which can be traced back not only to the reasons and obstacles that faced their application in higher education institutions in the country of origin (the United States), but also to reasons related to their epistemological reference, which lacks a universal character. Or objectivity or the adjective "science". This study highlighted three issues:
1. The difference between the characteristics of the Western epistemological theory that produced these administrative approaches within its framework from the characteristics of the Arab and Islamic epistemological theory, and the most important of these characteristics are: the denial of the unseen and the non-recognition of any role for religion outside the personal sphere, the following of reason and the denial of any other sources or tools of knowledge, and the absolute belief in The supremacy of the West and its historical message (the supremacy complex), and absolute pragmatism in defining the fields of using science and its applications, the hierarchical arrangement of science, and transforming the message of science into enabling the strong to rule over the weak through belief in the principle of struggle and survival of the strongest, and belief in the law of permanent change and transformation.
2. The epistemological framework with its aforementioned characteristics in Paragraph (1) lacks a global or universal character, and therefore the administrative theories and approaches developed by the West must lack the characteristics of objectivity, universality or universality, and because the universality of the framework is questionable, a big question mark must be It is based on the feasibility of importing Arab and Islamic societies to ready-made administrative theories and solutions.
3. There are a number of risks arising from the continuation of Arab and Islamic universities in importing western administrative approaches in the management of universities, and the most important of these risks are:
Confusion between what is cosmic and what is local in knowledge.
Westernization of the Arab and Islamic administrative mind.
- Consecration of Western centralism and the concept of unidirectional development.
- Acceptance of fads and popular trends in thought and culture.
- Deepening the phenomenon of the scientific and cultural dependence of Arab and Islamic universities on the center of Western knowledge production.
- Obstructing the establishment of Arab and Islamic management thought.
- Deepening the scientific tendency.