In the mail of Haroun and Al-Taaishi Constructive Criticism of the Building Project: A Cell or a Bud? (Safe Stagnation, or a Transition from Survival to Quality?) Captain Muhammad Hassan Al-Taher

Date: 9 November 2026

In education and organization, criticism is constructive when it meets three conditions:

It identifies where the flaw lies,

It acknowledges the strengths the project possesses,

It proposes a path to reform.

If the first condition is missing, criticism becomes mere impression. If the second is missing, it becomes demolition. If the third is missing, it becomes complaint.

Constructive criticism does not stand outside the project to judge it. It stands inside the project’s purpose and asks it:

Are you on the path you intended for yourself?

Does the meaning of God’s words apply to you: “I only intend reform as much as I am able” [Hud: 88]?

If reform is the goal, then criticism is its means, until the project is complete. Here the question arises: what is a project? The answer is that a project is:

An intention that has become a structure,

An idea that has taken on a framework, resources, time, and an audience,

Like a living organism in that it is born, is nourished, grows, falls ill, and may age or be renewed.

So the question in the title, “Is the project a cell or a bud?”, goes to the heart of the matter.

The cell is the unit of preservation:

It holds the essence, the identity, and the function.

The bud is the unit of extension:

It carries the promise of growth and spread,

It emerges from the mother body without separating from its origin.

A sound project is a cell in its steadfastness and a bud in its ambition. The Qur’an describes this balance in the parable of the good tree: “its root is firm and its branches are in the sky” [Ibrahim: 24].

The firm root is the cell,

The rising branch is the bud.

In Surat Al-Fath: “like a seed that sends out its shoots, then strengthens them, so they grow thick and stand firm on their stalks” [Al-Fath: 29]. That is, the shoot (which is the bud) emerges, is strengthened by its mother, and then stands upright.

A bud that is not supported by its origin withers,

An origin that does not sprout buds grows old.

Here arises the logical question about the project: necessity versus sufficiency (the question of the threshold).

Necessity is the minimum without which the project cannot stand:

Purpose, basic resources, and legitimacy.

Sufficiency is the threshold at which the project becomes able to fulfill its mission with quality, sustainability, and impact.

Many projects stop at necessity and mistake it for sufficiency. They complete the structure but not the function.

So the essay’s question is: should a project be criticized when necessity is exhausted but sufficiency remains unfulfilled?

Yes, and this is the most dangerous moment:

As long as necessity remains, the priority is survival,

Once it is exhausted, the priority shifts to quality.

A project that is not criticized at this stage enters the zone of “safe stagnation,” where everything appears sound while the body is in fact eroding.

The Qur’an teaches this progression: “So when you have finished, then strive” [Ash-Sharh: 7]. Finishing with necessity is the beginning of a new effort, which calls for engineering the field.

Engineering the Field: Along the Continuum Between the Labyrinth and the Distance

Every project has a field in which it operates. It is not merely geographic; it includes specialization, audience, and influence.

This field stretches along a continuum between two poles:

The labyrinth is branching without direction:

Many branches, overlapping decisions, and effort that circles back on itself.

The distance is a measured line between the starting point and the goal, in which what has been covered and what remains are known.

A project that expands without engineering turns into a labyrinth. One that hardens into a single line loses its flexibility in the face of change.

The wise engineer draws his field so that:

The distance remains measurable,

The labyrinth remains under control.

His model is Dhul-Qarnayn, to whom God gave power on earth, and who said: “I will make between you and them a barrier” [Al-Kahf: 95].

He defined the field precisely, then asked the people for help. God says: “So help me with strength” [Al-Kahf: 95].

Here criticism and participation entered the very core of the engineering. And here a further question arises: is the project a living being?

If the project is a living being, its survival depends on two continuous processes:

Renewing cells:

Replacing outdated roles with living ones, infusing new blood, and updating tools without touching the essence.

Removing ailments:

Exposing bloated bureaucracy, narrow loyalties, and dead goals, and cutting them out before they become tumors.

A body that refuses to renew its cells ages, and one that lets its ailments grow dies. The longer frankness is delayed, the more necessary surgery becomes.

The Qur’an gives an example of effort lost when structure is not preserved: “And do not be like she who unraveled her yarn, after it was strong, into fragments” [An-Nahl: 92].

Renewal has two complementary methods:

Frankness:

This is prevention: telling the truth early and gently. It is cheaper than treatment.

Surgery:

This is treatment: a painful decision to cut out what has spoiled when frankness fails or comes too late.

Every delay in frankness raises the cost of surgery. Wise projects make frankness an institutional habit, so that they rarely need surgery.

At its core this is a divine law: “Indeed, God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves” [Ar-Ra’d: 11].

Here comes the next question: does the project renew itself to preserve its essence, or to lead and expand?

Queueing theory (Little’s Law) offers a simple rule: the number of items in a system = their arrival rate × their average time in the system.

Applying it to a project reveals the dilemma. If demand (expansion) grows without a growth in capacity (the essence’s ability to absorb it), waiting times lengthen, quality deteriorates, and clients pile up.

If the project protects its essence by closing its doors, it stays small and erodes with time.

The answer, then, is that the project:

Renews itself to preserve its essence,

Then expands as far as the essence can accommodate.

Expansion beyond capacity is mere foam. God says: “As for the foam, it vanishes, cast off; but what benefits the people remains on the earth” [Ar-Ra’d: 17]. What benefits people is the essence, and it is what endures. This is borne out by geopolitical reality throughout history:

Meiji Japan (1868):

It absorbed industrial, institutional, and military renewal from the West while preserving its identity and social structure.

It was a cell that kept its essence and sprouted new buds, and so it caught up within a few decades.

The Soviet Union (Perestroika and Glasnost):

Frank criticism came after decades of stagnation, once economic and institutional ailments had accumulated.

In this case, when surgery began, frankness was long overdue, and the body opened up to all its diseases at once.

The lesson is how belated criticism turns from reform into explosion.

The European Union (the 2004 enlargement and after):

It is a living example of the queueing law. Candidate countries wait in line, and the more the Union expanded before deepening its institutions, the more pressure grew on its decision-making mechanisms.

The European debate between widening (the bud) and deepening (the cell) has remained a never-ending axis.

The Ottoman Tanzimat (19th century):

It imported the tools of modernization without rebuilding the social and economic essence, so it copied the form while the origin stayed the same.

It is an example of a bud that was not planted in the soil of its own origin, and so did not take root.

Constructive criticism of the building project is not an intellectual luxury. It is the immune system that protects the project from both stagnation and bloat.

In conclusion: whoever wants his project to be both a cell and a bud must take care of the root. He must open the windows of frankness before circumstances force him into the operating room, and understand that true expansion begins when sufficiency is complete, not when necessity ends.