Concept of Islamic Leadership in Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas’s Philosophy

Islamic leadership is defined as a divine trust (amanah) from Allah, based on the Tauhidic paradigm of oneness of Allah that is focusing to serve HIM as HIS servant, while at the same time be the servant of Allah, perform the role of Khalefah (vicegerent) of Allah fully adheres to the Sunnah central to Islamic personality, characteristics and aklaq (Islamic moral and ethical) that was exemplified by the prophet (s.a.w), leading followers to the organization goals and to the straight path of the success in the Hereafter. It is based on this adopted definition that the paper tries to look into the notion from perspective of a Malaysian Muslim Philosopher to the core, Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas, who believes in delivering amanah given to him, and at the same time perform the role of vicegerent of Allah. He suggests that lack of good leaders or rise of unqualified and false ones is one of the major problems of Ummah. Content analysis approach is engaged on both primary and secondary data collected. That is to say, it is a qualitative research in nature. The finding shows that the basis of Al-Attas’s concept of leadership is entrenched in Al-Qur’an and the tradition of the prophet in addition to his deep understanding on the Islamic Sciences such as Islamic theology, philosophy, and metaphysis and so on.

Impact of Service Quality on Brand Equity and Brand Loyalty: A Study Based on Café Industry of Islamabad

The competitive world today requires a very high brand equity and brand loyalty which can be attained through improved service quality (tangibility, responsiveness, reliability, assurance and empathy). In lieu of the investments in the service quality of cafes, the cafe industry has bloomed to a large scale and proved to be reliable in terms of huge profit and success. The purpose of this study is to examine the connection between the effect of tangibility, responsiveness, reliability, assurance and empathy on brand loyalty and brand equity. This study endeavors to find out how the enrichment in service quality enhances the consumer's commitment to repurchase the product, to continue using the same brand, or to increase the commercial value of the cafe brand that is derived from the customer perception of the brand. The data for the present research study were gathered through structures questionnaires from the cafe consumers of Islamabad. Response from 300 cafe consumers was collected and analyzed. Particularly cafe industry of Islamabad was selected due to its emerging growth in the metropolis. Multiple regression and t-tests were applied for the analysis of data. Findings of this research study show that there is a significant positive relationship of all the dimensions of service quality on brand equity and brand loyalty. Less developed nature of the industry and lack of previous researches limits this study. However, the geographical area can be spread all over Pakistan for the research in future. Besides, other variables can also be added that might contribute towards brand loyalty and brand equity.