What the Hijrah teaches businesses about planning

This Friday, worshippers across the Maldives gathered to hear a story that has echoed through generations. In a sermon titled "Lessons from the Hijrah," the Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Endowment marked the new Hijri year by retelling the Prophet Muhammad's (peace be upon him) migration from Makkah to Madinah. The sermon framed the journey not as a flight but as a feat of planning.

One line in the sermon stood out for anyone who runs a business. "The cornerstone of success lies in meticulous planning and the clear delegation of responsibilities before undertaking any endeavor," the sermon said, drawing the lesson from the preparations that preceded the migration.

That observation sits at the center of a quiet convergence. What Islamic scholarship has taught for centuries about preparation, trust, and intention now finds an echo in peer-reviewed management research on why some enterprises survive their first decade whereas others do not. For Maldivian firms, many of them family-owned and dependent on a single founder, the overlap is more than academic.

A migration built on four months of planning

The sermon's central claim is that the Hijrah was prepared long before it began. According to the sermon, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq began arranging the means of transport four months in advance and did so in complete secrecy. On the night the migration began, the sermon recounts, Ali ibn Abi Talib slept in the Prophet's bed to mislead those plotting against him.

Each member of the small group carried a defined task. The sermon describes Asma bint Abi Bakr carrying food up to the Cave of Thawr, where the Prophet and Abu Bakr sheltered, and Abdullah ibn Abi Bakr moving between Makkah and the cave to bring news, returning before dawn for three nights. A hired guide handled the route itself.

Management researchers describe this kind of structure in plainer terms. Roles are assigned, accountability is clear, and no single person carries every function. The sermon's account maps closely onto what the discipline calls role-based delegation, the same idea behind the responsibility frameworks taught in business schools.

The Hijrah team, and the functions they held

The sermon's point is that none of this was improvised. The planning horizon was long, and the information was tightly held. Modern strategy describes the same discipline as protecting a plan until it is ready to execute, a separation of the planning phase from the moment of disclosure.

Trust in Allah, after the work is done

The sermon devotes its second part to Tawakkul, reliance on Allah, and is careful to define it. It rejects the idea that trust means inaction.

"Tawakkul does not mean merely saying, I have placed my trust in Allah, and then remaining idle. Rather, it means taking all necessary means to accomplish a task while simultaneously seeking and having full reliance on Allah."

— Friday Sermon, Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Endowment

The sermon notes that before the migration, the Prophet secured a mount, hired a guide, and prepared provisions. He took every available means, the sermon says, and then trusted Allah for what lay beyond human reach.

Researchers studying Islamic entrepreneurship describe a similar pairing of effort and trust. A 2025 study published in the journal Administrative Sciences, titled "From Traits to Resilience," argues that Muslim entrepreneurs who combine persistent, ethically grounded effort with reliance on divine wisdom show greater resilience when conditions turn against them. The authors present their conclusion as a finding from their research rather than a guarantee of success, and the link between mindset and outcome remains an area of active study.

What the research says about planning

The sermon's emphasis on preparation lines up with a body of management research, though the evidence comes with caveats worth stating plainly.

A 2010 meta-analysis by Brinckmann, Grichnik, and Kapsa, published in the Journal of Business Venturing and drawing on dozens of empirical studies, found that business planning was positively associated with the performance of small firms and that regular, adaptive planning helped new ventures respond to change and allocate resources. The authors stress context. Planning helps, but the benefit depends on the firm and its environment, which is a more measured claim than the round figures sometimes quoted in the popular business press.

More recent reviews point in the same direction. A 2025 review in the MDPI journal Businesses examined dozens of articles on planning effectiveness and grouped the benefits into three types: economic gains such as improved sustainability, external gains such as credibility with investors and partners, and better internal decision-making. A 2024 systematic review in the journal Systems found that the planning priorities shift as a company matures, with vision and adaptability mattering most early on, and team management and financial planning becoming central later.

A planning horizon that grows with the business

Planning for the Cave of Thawr

The sermon's most dramatic passage is the moment of greatest danger. The pursuers from Makkah, the sermon says, tracked the Prophet's footsteps to the mouth of the cave. Abu Bakr feared that they might be seen. The Prophet Mohammad's (PBUH) reply, as the sermon narrates it, was calm.

"O Abu Bakr, what do you think of two, when Allah is the third of them?"

— The Prophet (peace be upon him), as narrated in the sermon, citing Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim

The composure, the sermon suggests, came not from denying the danger but from having prepared for it. Provisions were ready, the resupply line through Asma was in place, and the flow of news through Abdullah was running. The plan had been built for exactly this scenario.

Crisis researchers make a related argument about preparation, though the figures circulating on the subject vary by source and should be interpreted with care. A widely cited PwC Global Crisis Survey reported that organizations with a detailed crisis plan, with a clear command structure and defined responsibilities, were more likely to emerge from disruption in better shape, while a large share of leaders surveyed had no such plan despite expecting to face a crisis. The exact percentages depend on the survey year and sample, and MBR has not independently verified them.

Risks that recur across a company's life

For Maldivian firms, the delegation risk is worth dwelling on. Researchers describe a predictable point, often between a company's third and seventh year, when growth outpaces a founder's ability to make every decision. The bottleneck that follows can stall an otherwise healthy business. The Islamic concept of Shura, or consultation, offers both an ethical frame and a practical fix, which is to build a decision-making structure before it is needed rather than after.

The Suhaib lesson, on letting go to gain

The sermon recalls Suhaib ar-Rumi, who, when told he could migrate only if he surrendered his wealth, gave it up without hesitation. The sermon records the Prophet's response: "Suhaib has profited; Suhaib has profited."

Read as a business lesson, the story points to a counterintuitive discipline. Giving up a short-term asset to secure a longer-term position can be a gain rather than a loss. The clearest parallels are familiar to any operator:

• Sunk-cost discipline, the ability to walk away from a failing product or strategy without being held hostage by what was already spent.

• Accepting dilution, giving up some ownership to bring in a partner, capital, or market access that accelerates long-term value.

• Ethical non-negotiables, declining a lucrative but compromised contract because the reputational cost outweighs the gain.

• Succession readiness, recognizing when an organization has outgrown its founder, and treating an orderly handover as an act of leadership.

Umm Salama, and surviving separation

The sermon also tells the story of Umm Salama, separated from her husband Abu Salama and their infant son when her family detained her and his family took the child. The three were apart for a long period before reuniting in Madinah, the sermon says, and the migration was completed.

For organizations, the story reads as a study in resilience under enforced loss, the departure of a co-founder, the exit of a key employee, the loss of a flagship client, or a market contraction that removes a primary revenue stream. The point is not that such disruptions can be avoided, but that an organization can be built to endure them: by ensuring no single person is an irreplaceable dependency, by documenting critical knowledge, by holding reserves set aside specifically for hard periods, and by rehearsing recovery before it is needed.

A five-stage frame, drawn from the journey

Stripped to its structure, the sermon's account of the Hijrah suggests a sequence that a founder or an established firm could recognize. MBR sets it out below as one reading of the material, not as a prescription.

The cave was not the destination

The sermon is clear that the Cave of Thawr was a shelter, not an end point. The migration led to the founding of the first Muslim community in Madinah and to events that reshaped the region.

Read alongside the management literature, the sermon's lesson is modest and durable. Firms that prepare early, delegate clearly and hold reserves for the challenging moments tend to come through disruption in better shape than those that do not, though research is careful to frame the outcome as a tendency rather than a guarantee. The sermon adds a dimension that spreadsheets miss: the steadiness to keep going when a plan is tested.

"O Allah, Turner of Hearts, keep our hearts steadfast upon Your religion."

— Closing supplication of the Hijrah sermon