From mayor to the great leader.

After the abolition of caliph system, the Muslim land was divided into many countries according to their nation. Eventually, nowadays, there are more than 50 Muslim countries all over the world. Although becoming independent, most of the Muslim countries are still not achieve a proper standard of ideal country. Underdevelopment, corruption, famine in some cases, a non-sustainable environment, dictatorships and other sociopolitical and economical calamities are synonymous with Muslim countries as their leaders need to carry a good part of the blame.

However, in recent decades, the emerging of Recep Toyyib Erdorgan (Turkish President), Mahmood Ahmadinejad (Previous Iran President) and Joko Widodo (Indonesian President) has changed people’ perception toward Muslim leaders.  Their charismatic through words or works not only has influenced local citizen, but also admired by Muslims around the world regardless the different political ideology. 

Why did people respect them? A number of reasons might have been put forward for this, but by far, the apparent similarity among them is an excellent track - record as mayor before elected as the country’s leader.

Erdogan for instance, after winning in local election in 1994 and elected as the mayor of Istanbul, he showed his impressive reputation to solve chronic problem in that city. Over the period of his governance, even he was criticized by secularist for banning alcohol in city cafe, but they also admitted  the significant reformations by Erdorgan such as tackling water shortage, reducing pollution and unraveling the traffic congestion.

Erdogan : The current Turkish President

Unlike Erdorgan and Jokowi, Ahmadinejad maybe unpopular among some of Muslim Sunnis. They claimed that Ahmadinejad only attracted others through his harsh words to western leaders especially the USA. However, in fact, Ahmadinejad has proven his leadership through his record as a mayor. Before elected as the Iran president, Ahmadinejad served himself as a mayor of Tehran. His achievement in enhancing the traffic system and emphasizing on charity such as distributing free soup to the poor pave him the way to be one of 65 finalist world mayor in 2005. Interestingly, from 550 nominees, only nine of them from Asia include Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad's life impress many people

Meanwhile, Jokowi, the current Indonesian president has experienced task as a mayor for two times, first in Surakata and second in Jakarta. Serving for 9 million residents, which is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world, Jokowi has introduced many policies and approaches such as visiting poor area through Jakarta, inaugurating Jakarta MRT, initiating programs aimed towards transparency, improving education and welfare system. On 18 October 2014, he has been chosen as the cover for Time magazine.

Jokowi, popular among poor people

Those persons remind me about one of the famous caliphs in Islamic history, which was Umar Abdul Aziz. Apart from his character as a pious leader and in-depth knowledge in Islam, his best performance in coping with poverty could not be deniable. Even his leadership only two years but record showed that there were no poor who qualified for zakat at that time. Interestingly, according to history, Umar Abdul Aziz also has governed Madina province before appointed as a Caliph.

All in all, one could not deny that leadership must be proved by dynamic work. Being a mayor maybe a good position show leadership qualification before becoming as the county’s leader.