The purpose of this research is to investigate separate themes of Islamic Leadership based on analyses conducted on selected literature of conventional and Islamic Leadership. The themes of Islamic Leadership were identified for the purpose of developing a specific inventory to measure Islamic Leadership or the Islamic Leadership Inventory(ILI). In identifying the themes of Islamic Leadership, this research applied qualitative content analysis procedures on four categories of literature. The literature are (1) The Qur’anand Hadiths (2) Managerial Leadership and Servant Leadership literature (3) Contemporary Islamic Leadership literature (4) Classical texts of Islamic Leadership. This research used NVIVOto facilitateinformation processing. Withrespect to the underlying theoryof research, this research is based on the principles of higher objectives of Shari’ahor the Maqasid al-Shari’ahto justify the importance of the identified Islamic Leadership behaviorsfrom the lenses of Islam. Based on the content analysis, this research found 25 separate themes representing Islamic Leadership Behaviours.The 25 themes are (1) Trustworthiness and Integrity, (2) Employees Orientation, (3) Self-evaluation, (4) Patience, (5) Outcome Orientation, (6) Empowerment, (7) Social Responsibility (8) Flexibility (9) Non-Calculative, (10) Spirituality, Religiousness and Piety,(11) Esprit De Corps, (12) Bravery, (13) Justice and Equity, (14) High Self-Reliance and High Self-Esteem, (15) Modesty and Shyness, (16) Impartially, (17)Moderation and Balance, (18) Good in Communication, (19) Free from environmental-constrains, (20) Earnest, (21)Cheerful, (22) Feared when angry, (23) Empowering Intelligent, Wisdom and Encourage Synergy, (24) Role Model, and (25) Avoid Conflict. The themes suggested could be used to measure Islamic Leadership in various perspectives. In general, this paper offers policymakers, organisations, and researchers in various avenues the important dimensions of Islamic Leadership. Specifically, the Islamic Leadership Inventory (ILI) could be utilised to measure the effectiveness of Muslims’ professionals based on the perspectives of Islam and the higher objectives ofShari’ah. In sum, this paper found that Islamic Leadership could be represented in several dimensions and could be adapted in the conventional measures of managerial leadership. Keywords:Islamic Leadership Inventory, Leadership Behaviour, Leadership Approaches

The purpose of this research is to develop a specific inventory of Islamic Managerial Leadership (ILI) for Islamic professionals in organisations. The inventory is expected to be a combination of modern dimensions of conventional managerial leadership and fundamental dimensions of Islamic leadership. The dimensions of ILI were inductively developed through comparative content analysis based on the concept of Servant Leadership (S-L) and the Islamic Leadership (I-L). The content analysis revealed 19 separate clusters in which 79 items were identified for ILI. Most of the items are self-developed, based on several widely-used managerial leadership inventory. ILI was distributed to 120 Muslim professionals with leadership roles in Malaysia. The results of the Principal Component Analysis revealed the presence of 10 clusters with eigenvalues exceeding 1, explaining 56.47% variance. The 10 clusters could validate the 19 clusters identified in the comparative content analysis based on the reason that most of the items are loaded in the 10 clusters. In addition, each dimension has good internal consistency, with a cronbach alpha coefficient between 0.612 to 0.957. As a result this paper argues that ILI could be used to measure Islamic Leadership practices of professionals based on the theoretical foundation of the inventory and the above results obtained from the empirical investigation conducted for the inventory. Future research could investigate ILI with leadership performance variables to increase the validity of the inventory

Studies comparing the experiences of new Muslim converts between one country to another were limited in the literature. The new Muslim converts have to go through three different phases in their experiences in embracing Islam. The three phases are pre conversion, conversion and post conversion. The main purpose of this paper is to seek the understanding of what the new Muslims have to go through in embracing Islam. Focus groups and surveys were conducted to reveal the phenomenon of the new Muslims encountered in embracing Islam. This paper contributes to knowledge in terms of providing a focus on the new Muslim converts� development.

This study investigated predictors of employability among graduates of Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM). Eight graduates? competencies and values that were hypothesised as predictors of employment are Religiosity, Teamwork, Leadership, ICT, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Critical Thinking, and Ethics. Among the eight variables, Leadership, Ethics, and Religiosity were hypothesised as the mediators for this research. A structured Malay version self-administered questionnaire was distributed to all USIM alumni graduated between year 2003 until 2013 by using an Alumni Portal. The total number of population for this study is 9,840 graduates. 1146 responds were received by the researchers in the first half year of data collection. Results of the hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the eight predictors of employability explained 37 percent variance of employment status. Specifically, the analysis demonstrated Leadership, Ethics, and Religiosity completely mediated the influence of ICT, Communication, Thinking Ability, and Teamwork competencies toward graduates? employment status. In sum, this research found that value-related graduates? competencies are important for employability. This could support the focus of USIM to integrate Islamic values in the development of their curriculum and education design. Future research should focus on to increase the research participation. Furthermore, an in depth qualitative study on USIM graduates should also be conducted to further understand the issue.