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The purpose of this paper is to compare the criteria used among Islamic Indices, specifically between the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange Shari'ah Index (KLSESI) and the Dow Jones Islamic Market Index (DJIM) in screening a permissible company for investment purposes. The two controversial criteria examined are: level of debt and level of liquidity of company.

The paper investigates the 642 companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia in 2006 as approved Shariah's compliant companies by the Shari'ah Advisory Council of the KLSE.

Overall, the results reveal that the KLSESI does not use both the criteria set by the DJIM as its measures during the screening process. As for the level of debt criterion, the results show that 44.07 percent of the companies listed under the KLSESI are highly geared. These companies depend heavily on debt to finance their capital. However, the results for the level of liquidity criterion are not as extreme as the level of debt where it shows only 17 percent of the companies listed under the KLSESI are highly liquid. The results also indicate that if both criteria are compared concurrently, only 198 out of 565 companies listed under the KLSESI conform to the criteria set up by the DJIM.

The main reasons why the differences exist among Islamic Indices are due to micro‐factor as faced by Malaysian companies such as the limited amount of capital resources. The Shari'ah supervisory board of the respective indices represents the sole body that determines the rules or criteria to be used by each index. This explains why the indices differ from one country to another and efforts should be done by regulators in the respective countries to harmonize the differing criteria used.

The paper represents the first study that compares the criteria used by two different indices regarding Islamic capital investment in a developing country.

The purpose of this paper is to find applicable Islamic pricing benchmarks (IPBs) instead of the market interest rates which are currently used in Islamic finance as benchmark.

The suggested model (Islamic pricing benchmark model (IPBM)) obviously reveals the feasibility and practical effectiveness of a substitute to London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and as an evaluator tool to suggested investment projects. The model is a suggested mechanism which could be used as an alternative choice to the conventional borrowing based on the forbidden Riba or on interest. The suggested IPBM depends on estimating the rate of return for any project on consideration of the cash flows in future which is expected to be relative to the invested capital.

The IPBM approach might be applied to financial tools, where the fund owner bears the loss since it is not because of negligence. An instrument to help identify the investment for target rates of return (as an alternative choice to LIBOR) to identify a breakeven point based on expected cash flows for the project to be financed instead of based on seeking the indicators of interest or Riba (as LIBOR). This feature of the IPBM model as an Islamic benchmark renders it as a Shariah pricing mechanism for the Islamic financial products.

The IPBM could be used as a financial instrument to assist in identifying the investment for the target return rates to determine a breakeven point based on expected cash flows for the project to be funded instead of being based on seeking the interest indicators or Riba (as LIBOR). This feature as an Islamic benchmark is considered as a Shariah pricing mechanism for the Islamic financial products. In particular, the proposed model incorporates the Shariah parameters. In that, it is hoped that the Islamic financial instruments will be more comprehensive in their Shariah compliance and thereby may bring more credibility to the Islamic financial system in general.

This paper highlights several important issues related to the IPBMs in Islamic financial institutions which are not widely discussed among researchers. This study contributes to finding an alternative IPB for the Islamic financial products which is currently using the conventional interest rate (LIBOR) as its benchmark. The current study provides empirical evidence for the possibility of relying on the IPBM as an Islamic benchmark to price Islamic financial transactions.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the impacts of good maintenance work for heritage buildings in Malaysia. This purpose is achieved through identifying factors that lead to the lack of maintenance of heritage buildings, establishing strategies to overcome the lack of maintenance of heritage buildings and analyzing the impact of good maintenance work on heritage buildings in Malaysia.

A quantitative method was employed for this study to identify the variables that most influence the maintenance of heritage buildings in Malaysia. The respondents were the owners of the heritage buildings in Peninsular Malaysia. There were 65 owners of heritage buildings identified from the official website of the Department of National Heritage, Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Malaysia. Simple random sampling was used to obtain the sample size of the targeted respondent. A total of 56 questionnaire surveys were distributed to the owners of heritage buildings. In total, 37 respondents returned the completed questionnaires, resulting in a response rate of 66 percent. The data were analyzed by Descriptive Statistics using Statistical Package for the Social Science software version 20.

Results show that the factors that lead to the lack of maintenance of heritage buildings are limited finance, the absence of maintenance guideline and ill-defined maintenance policy. The strategies to overcome the problem include providing a financial budget by the respective authorities, establishing a standard maintenance guideline and revising the existing policy.

The paper is limited to the identification of factors that lead to a lack of maintenance and strategies to overcome the problem for the heritage buildings in Malaysia. The respondents are the owners of heritage buildings in Malaysia. The focus is given to them due to the fact that it will help them in understanding the importance of managing and operating for their buildings.

The results offer value-added information to building managers who are responsible for maintaining heritage buildings. Findings show that good maintenance work on heritage buildings can enhance the value and safety of the building as well as preventing heritage buildings from deteriorating.

The quality of maintenance could be enhanced by focusing on the important variables that affect the quality of maintenance works of heritage buildings.

Limited studies had been carried out in the context of the maintenance of heritage buildings, especially in Malaysia.

Conventional methods practiced by the Development and Facilities Management Unit (UPPF) have faced issues due to management deficiencies and incompetent staff members who were unable to handle facilities management assessment processes at Malaysian Polytechnics. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The prime objective of this paper is to improve the conventional methods which tend to be both cumbersome and ineffective in the UPPF Maintenance Management Systems (MMSs) at Malaysian Polytechnics. Primary data were gathered through interviews to develop the proposed system. Eight Polytechnics were selected based on major problems arising from using conventional methods. A comparison was then conducted to investigate the maintenance management practices at each Polytechnic. There are around 32 Polytechnics in Malaysia and most are using conventional methods.

The major conclusion drawn from the interview results was that comprehensive MMSs are lacking, specifically those that integrate operation and maintenance (O&M) processes of facilities management and software programming that provides guidelines for decision-making processes. The interview results also revealed irregularities within the Malaysian Polytechnics’ maintenance management database. This paper explores the concepts of Electronic Form Defect Assessment (E-Form Defect Assessment), relational databases and online customer complaints to adapt their role as dynamic maintenance management tools.

The paper concludes that the developed system is able to accommodate recording of data, such as complaints and specific items needed for maintenance, through the internet and intranet. MMSs potentially transform facilities management O&M processes into one of the most sophisticated technologies by providing access to all information published by each Malaysian Polytechnic institution. This technology was established in order to foster financial cooperation with the idea being that Polytechnics which compete with one another become financially interdependent with the goal of promoting successful facilities management in the construction of new facilities and infrastructure.

This paper aims to expand the literature on performance and volatility of Islamic funds and indices in comparison to their conventional unscreened counterparts, by studying the Moroccan case considering the recent introduction of Islamic finance in the country toward the end of 2015.

As there are still no Shariah-compliant indices in Morocco, the authors first applied four Shariah screening methodologies of some of the world leading equity index providers (i.e. Dow Jones, FTSE, S&P and MSCI) to screen the public listed companies in Casablanca Stock Exchange for Shariah compliance. Next, the authors constructed four Islamic float-weighted indexes for which they modeled the dynamic volatility using an extension of the AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity models, namely, EGARCH(1,1).

The findings show that the screening process resulted in a well-diversified universe of Shariah-compliant stocks (25.6 per cent) to invest in. Furthermore, it is found that constructed Islamic indices outperformed the broad-based Moroccan All Shares Index (MASI) during the considered period of analysis (January 2013 to December 2014), and their long-run volatility is higher. This indicates that investors in Shariah-compliant stocks do not sacrifice financial performance for their risky investment. The estimates of the model show that volatility for the MASI is more persistent and takes longer time to die, and the leverage effect is positive for all indices, meaning that volatility of indexes’ returns is influenced more by good news than bad news, a result that is in contrast to other studies for developed countries.

On the arrival of the new banking law that introduced Islamic finance for the first time in Morocco, the authors suppose that these results could be very helpful for the Moroccan financial authorities in consideration with the construction of Islamic equity indices for Muslim investors seeking to invest ethically in accordance to their religious convictions but also for index funds managers and other equity market players.

The present study is the first of its kind in Morocco to construct Islamic indices using Shariah screening methodologies for which the volatility is modeled using an EGARCH(1,1) dynamic volatility model.