Green leadership in development management: Synthesizing Islamic ethical paradigms and sustainability science

This study examined the epistemological roots of the contemporary leadership and environmental crises, arguing that both arise from the secularisation of knowledge and the disconnection between ethics, governance, and transcendence. Employing a qualitative, conceptual methodology grounded in textual and normative analysis, it constructed the Green Khalifah Leadership Framework (GKL-F), a model that re-integrates spiritual ontology, ethical formation, and jurisprudential teleology into sustainability governance. The study synthesised classical and modern Islamic perspectives, including al-Fārābī’s virtuous city, al-Māwardī’s ordinances of government, al-Faruqi’s Islamisation of knowledge, and al-Zuḥaylī’s civilisational eco-theology, to propose an integrative framework where leadership functions as stewardship (khilāfah) rooted in tawḥīd (divine unity) and maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah (higher objectives of Islamic law). The synthesis suggests that re-sacralising sustainability requires aligning governance with moral purpose, institutionalising adab (ethical discipline), and operationalising amānah (trust) and ‘adl (justice) in leadership practice. The GKL-F thus transforms sustainability from a managerial concept into an act of ‘ibādah (worship through responsibility), providing a theological and policy-relevant model for Muslim-majority contexts and beyond. Methodologically, this article is a normative–conceptual civilisational analysis and does not report primary empirical data.