Measuring Dialogue, Managing Unity: A KPI-Governed Performance Analysis of al-Murājaʿāt Using a Design-Science Approach

This study converts the ۱۱۲-letter corpus of al-Murājaʿāt into an auditable performance system and validates a KPI-governed Unity Index. Addressing the absence of scalable measures for dialogical ethics, cross-school evidence flows, and institutional uptake, we adopt a mixed-methods design: AI-assisted content coding and discourse analysis at letter level; evidence-flow modeling to quantify cross-citation and Qurʾān–Sunnah harmonization; and psychometric validation (inter-coder reliability, EFA→CFA) to confirm domain structure. Findings show consistently high Dialogue-Ethics performance (e.g., respectful tone, rebuttal without derision), strong Cross-Reliance on Sunni authorities with sustained harmonization signals, and comparatively weak Institutionalization/Education and Governance/RACI domains (e.g., curriculum inclusion, reviewer participation, documentation completeness). The Unity Index integrates these dynamics, revealing that civility and shared-authority sourcing lift composite scores while limited organizational adoption constrains long-run impact. Theoretically, the work advances a measurement theory of dialogical kalām by specifying observable variables with reliability targets and thresholds. Practically, it provides governance-ready dashboards for curriculum policy, program accreditation, public communication risk control, and continuous improvement. The framework transfers to adjacent management contexts: service-quality gates and compliance dashboards in airline management; stakeholder-trust controls in tourism and health tourism; and explainable, validated KPI programs in digital transformation initiatives.

Keywords:

Al-Murājaʿāt , Key Performance Indicators (KPI) , Performance Management , Design-Science Research (DSR) , Dialogical Analytics , Social Network Analysis (SNA) , Islamic Scholasticism