In the framework of spreading awareness of the concepts and exchange of experiences in the various domains of public health among staff members, the College of Public Health and Health Informatics organized a scientific lecture on Monday, 13^th Rajab 1438H (10^th April 2017) titled, "A Culturally-Appropriate Strategy for Quality." The lecture was presented by Prof. Dr. Zaki bin Shaker Siddiqui, Professor at the Department of Environmental Health, College of Public Health and Health Informatics, Umm Al-Qura University (UQU). It was also in the presence of Dr. Hamed Abdulaziz Ghulam (Vice-Dean of the College), a number of department heads, some professors at other UQU colleges, as well as many staff members at the College's departments.  

Prof. Dr. Siddiqui demonstrated a number of quality aspects in terms of concepts, origin and consideration by the most famous persons in such domain, including Edwards Deming, the father of contemporary quality, and Peter Senge, the strategist of this age. He also reviewed the stages of quality development in the modern age, from industrial engineering, through quality control, various quality systems and models, total quality management (TQM), and ending with the Five Disciplines Theory by Peter Senge (i.e. Personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, systems thinking).

Prof. Dr. Siddiqui also explained the justifications for thinking about a quality model to suit the Islamic environment and community. He illustrated that after the end of the second millennium, there was a vacuum in the quality process, as all theories and models did not reach the ultimate goal of achieving the spirit of quality; employees and customers continued to complain despite the availability of material aspects, systems and quality-related processes. Moreover, he said that Deming, the godfather of quality, almost stopped using the term TQM because he thought it had become a superficial preamble of tools and techniques only. He added that Edgar Shein, one of the pillars of management and quality in modern times, stated that "Leaders should be humble."

He explained that the way to solution was through the learned organization. This would be across its three levels: implicit assumptions, values and beliefs (internal view), and tools (external view).

Therefore, Prof. Dr. Siddiqui cautioned that such vacuum in quality in the Western societies was the result of the contradiction between mind and spirit, and would only be filled with Islamic values. Thus, he considered an Islamic cultural model that filled the spiritual vacuum in the well-known quality systems.

Such model consisted of three axes: slavery to Allah, intention, and self-affirmation. Each had elements that were focused on to achieve quality from an Islamic spiritual perspective.

At the end of the presentation there was a discussion between the professor and the audience about some aspects of the subject. Such aspects included the idea of adopting an Islamic spiritual model of quality to break the clash of mind and spirituality in the contemporary models of quality and management, and the need to think and work to find operational mechanisms for such model. They also involved the comprehensiveness of Islamic thought to all aspects of life such as work, learning and worship, the initiative to benefit from Islamic values to feed science and modern management, and the consideration of the school of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) to be the pioneer of quality achievement. It was also stated that further presentation and discussion on the subject in subsequent sessions were needed.