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This study aims to find out the problems of family Takaful (Islamic Life Insurance) operations in Bangladesh and proposes strategies to overcome the problems.

Qualitative data were collected through interviews with 32 respondents from two family Takaful operators in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The study finds a number of problems of family Takaful which relate to the government, Takaful company and the Shariah board. Lack of governing guidelines for Takaful companies in Bangladesh is causing numerous operational problems of family Takaful. To overcome these obstacles, the government should propose separate Act for Takaful. This requires support from the stakeholders along with Islamic scholars in the country.

It is anticipated that the findings and suggestions of the study will assist the policymakers in improving the situation of family Takaful companies particularly in Bangladesh.

If the proposed suggestions are implemented in Takaful companies, the problems facing Takaful will likely be solved and more people will take part in Takaful. This would contribute to developing the country economically, raise Islamic values and foster peace and harmony in the society.

Mainly, this study is based on the primary research that has been conducted in family Takaful companies in Bangladesh.

This study aims to examine the relationship of work–family demands with employees’ well-being, and the role of management/supervisory support in this relationship. The following hypotheses were proposed: work–family demands would be negatively related to employees’ well-being; management/supervisory support would moderate the relationship of work–family demands with employees’ well-being.

The researchers used 250 working female academicians as respondents, working in the research universities in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Their ages ranged from 30 to 60 years.

The findings of the present study proved that the work–family demands were negatively associated with employees’ well-being. Results also revealed that management and supervisory support strengthens the relationship between work–family demands and employees’ well-being. Thus, management and supervisory support plays an important role in balancing work demands and family roles and also in increasing working female academicians’ well-being.

In this study, management and supervisory support was found to be directly related to well-being, including life satisfaction, job satisfaction and family satisfaction. However, the direct relationship between management/supervisory support and well-being was positive and significant. This study also found that management/supervisor support reduced work–family conflict and work–family demands. Also, supervisory and management support was found to have a significant and positive relationship with well-being. Given these findings, supervisory and management support plays a very important role as a moderator of work–family demands and in developing and improving well-being in working women.

This paper aims to clarify the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in human society, based on the concept of muwālāt (commonly translated as “loyalty”) in the Qurʾān.

The present study follows a contextual and analytical methodology.

This paper concludes that muwālāt is not only ideological but can be contractual too. A historical study of the Prophet’s (PBUH) interaction with non-Muslims in Mecca and Medina illustrates that as long as non-Muslims did not behave treacherously or turn to violence, a peaceful relationship was established and alliances and coalitions were formed. And this paper concludes that the categorisation of previous Muslim scholars, which was is in terms of prohibited and permitted, is inappropriate.

This paper clarifies that the categorisation of previous Muslim scholars, which was in terms of prohibited and permitted, is inappropriate, and muwālāt is not only belongs to faith.

Southeast Asia has been actively undergoing land conversion into agricultural lands over past few decades. This creates the challenges to the nation in dealing with the non-point source pollutants in many fluvial systems, thus requiring an effective approach in sediment source apportionment for an appropriate target mitigation procedure. The trace element property from different source points was used for catchment classification of Galas River. Sediment sample collection was carried out at the sources and sink areas of the catchment system. Fine sediment was analysed using X-ray fluorescence to obtain elemental composition followed by the statistical test and numerical model. Out of 83 elements, 12 elements (Mn, Ca, Cr, Ga, Dy Hf, Y, V, Th, Pb, Zn and Sr) have been selected as best tracer signatures. The solver model has indicated Pergau River as the major sediment contributor to this large catchment system. The model output could directly be proportional with the land-use practice, indicating excessive terrestrial alteration has taken place within the sites for agricultural plantation purposes. Thus, this highly recommends for the decision-making use to the targeted areas to overcome the serious sedimentation issues caused by the tillage operation in affected stream points and to improve the watershed quality.

Ontologies play an important role in enabling machines to understand and navigate a knowledge base. Currently, a number of ontologies covering specific topic in the Quran have been created to serve a particular application. However, these existing Quran ontologies are limited in scope and knowledge. Specifically, existing ontologies do not support contextual information that is considered necessary for correct interpretation of the verses of Quran. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In order to fill this gap, this paper reports development of an ontology for Juz' Amma that encapsulates contextual information support, which are the translations, revelations place, tafsir, and hadiths.

The developed ontology was evaluated and was found to satisfy the requirements specification.

In addition, this ontology can be reused and further enhanced to support many Quran-related semantic applications in the future.

Islamic art is characterized by a deep-rooted vitality and distinct form of expression that arises from its intimate position with regard to Islamic civilization. While civilizational turning points and major occurrences have held deep ramifications for its growth and development, the most prominent catalysts of civilizational status are not only found in the realm of the political and economic, but rather within a deeper expanse of ideas, spirituality, and societal consciousness; of which Islamic art acts as a prime indicator. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper would seek to survey the depths inherent within Islamic spirituality's relationship with Islamic art, and further isolate the reasons and source of their subsistence and continued prevalence.

The paper further delves into the relationship shared by spirituality and art, and the influences they exert upon one another. Moreover, it attempts to delineate between the mundane and transcendental spheres of civilizational growth and development, while seeking to come to terms with the sustainability of Islamic art, and its position with respect to Islamic civilization.

The paper concludes that Islamic art is sustained and defined by means of a unique catalyzing ethos responsible for Islamic civilizational culture that is altogether distinct from the temporal mundane reality of socio-political conditions of civilization.

Although there have been extensive studies on the hydrological and erosional impacts of logging, relatively little is known about the impacts of conversion into agricultural plantation (namely rubber and oil palm). Furthermore, studies on morphological impacts, sediment-bound chemistry and forensic attribution of deposited sediment to their respective sources are scarcer. This chapter introduces the potential for using the multi-proxy sediment fingerprinting technique in this context. Featuring pilot projects in two major flood-prone river systems in Malaysia, the studies explore application of geochemistry-based sediment source ascription. The geochemical signatures of sediment mixtures on floodplains were compared to sediments from upstream source tributaries. The tributaries were hypothesised to have different geochemical signatures in response to dominant land management. The first case study took place in the Segama River system (4,023 km²) of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo where a mixture of primary forest, logged-forests and oil palm plantations were predominant. The second case study was in the Kelantan River Basin (13,100 km²) with two major tributaries (Galas River and Lebir River) where logged-forests and rubber and oil palm plantations are dominant land-uses. Both case studies demonstrated the applicability of this method in ascribing floodplain deposited sediment to their respective upstream sources. Preliminary results showed that trace elements associated with fertilisers (e.g. copper and vanadium) contribute to agricultural catchment signatures. Alkaline and alkaline-earth elements were linked to recently established oil palm plantations due to soil turnover. Mixing model outputs showed that contributions from smaller, more severely disturbed catchment are higher than those from larger but milder disturbed catchments. This method capitalises on flood events to counter its adverse impacts by identifying high-priority sediment source areas for efficient and effective management.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the lubricity of palm biodiesel (PB)–diesel fuel with plastic pyrolysis oil (PPO) and waste cooking biodiesel (WCB).

Three quaternary fuels were prepared by mechanical stirring. B10 (10% PB in diesel) fuel was blended with 5%, 10% and 15% of both PPO and WCB. The results were compared to B30 (30% PB in diesel) and B10. The lubricity of fuel samples was determined using high-frequency reciprocating rig in accordance with ASTM D6079. The tribological behavior of all fuels was assessed by using scanning electron microscopy on worn steel plates to determine wear scar diameter (WSD) and surface morphology. The reported WSD is the average of the major and minor axis of the wear scar.

The addition of PPO and WCB to B10 had improved its lubricity while lowering wear and friction coefficients. Among the quaternary fuels, B40 showed the greatest reduction in coefficient of friction and WSD, with 7.63% and 44.5%, respectively, when compared to B10. When compared to B30a, the quaternary fuel mixes (B40, B30b and B20) exhibited significant reduction in WSD by 49.66%, 42.84% and 40.24%, respectively. Among the quaternary fuels, B40 exhibited the best overall lubricating performance, which was supported by surface morphology analysis. The evaluation of B40 indicated a reduced adhesive wear and tribo-oxidation, as well as a smoother metal surface, as compared to B20 and B30b.

Incorporation of PPO and WCB in PB–diesel blend as a quaternary fuel blend in diesel engines has not been reported. Only a few researchers looked into the impact of PPO and WCB on the lubricity of the fuel.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a structural overview of speech recognition system for developing Quranic verse recitation recognition with tajweed checking rules function. This function has been introduced, due to support the existing and manual method of talaqqi and musyafahah method in Quranic learning process, which described as face-to-face learning process between students and teachers. Here, the process of listening, correction and repetition of the correct Al-Quran recitation took place in real-time condition. However, this method is believed to become less effective and unattractive to be implemented, especially towards the young Muslim generation who are more attracted to the latest technology.

This paper focuses on the development of software prototype, mainly for developing an automated Tajweed checking rules engine, purposely for Quranic learning. It has been implemented and tested towards the j-QAF students at primary school in Malaysia.

The paper provides empirical insight about the viability and implementation of Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) algorithm of feature extraction technique and hidden Markov model (HMM) classification for recognition part, with the results of recognition rate reached to 91.95 percent (ayates) and 86.41 percent (phonemes), after been tested on sourate Al-Fatihah.

Based on the result, proved that the engine has a potential to be used as an educational tool, which helps the students read Al-Quran better, even without the presence of teachers (Mudarris)/parents to monitor them. Automated system with Tajweed checking rules capability functions could be another alternative due to support the existing method of manual skills of Quranic learning process, without denying the main role of teachers in teaching Al-Quran.