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The purpose of this paper is to investigate ethical leadership in the context of the Arab educational system in Israel. It questions the relations of ethical leadership dimensions with decision making as well as background characteristics of the educational leaders.

Arab educational leaders (n=150) from diverse Arab schools responded to valid research tool of 40 items constructed of six subscales: three ethical leadership dimensions (critique, justice and care) and three leadership work aspects (ethical sensitivity, climate and decision making). Averages were calculated for each subscale.

Significant relations were found among ethical leadership dimensions and decision making, the leaders’ school type and their seniority.

This study is based on research in diverse countries, using a common conceptual frame. Its limitation is the sample’s narrow scope.

The study results may inform the developing ethical qualities in educational leadership.

The authors recommend widening the scope of the sample examined to further clarify the concept of ethical leadership and its implications to the practice of educational leadership.

There is a misconception that Hajj and Umarah is just a worship matter and the consequences of suspending these religious gathering due to the pandemic is only limited to delay of going Saudi Arabia to perform it. However, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the impact of the pandemic in Hajj and Umrah by exploring its impact on different stakeholders affecting its disruption due to the pandemic.

This is a library-based study that uses qualitative method to explore the impact of COVID-19 on Hajj and Umrah. Thus, provisions of Quran and hadith on Hajj and Umrah were examined as primary data for the research to establish the importance of the rituals in Islam. Guidelines set by Hajj regulators and instruments enabling them in that behalf were examined likewise. In addition, content analyses were made of relevant secondary data from published sources including articles, books, newspapers and web resources that embody scholarly, scientific and religious views on the issue being studied.

It is realised that in the first year of the pandemic, while Umrah is entirely suspended, Hajj was scaled back and performed by 10,000 people altogether, a tiny segment of the over two and half million that partook in the ritual previously. Hajj and Umrah have been greatly inhibited and jeopardised by the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in religious, social, economic, psychological effects on the eligible but affected Muslims and Muslims countries. Along these lines, recommendations were accordingly proffered on the way forward to better Hajj and Umrah management.

It is anticipated that the findings of the research would assist policy makers to comprehend the impact of the pandemic on Hajj and Umrah to ensure that the policies they make in this regard would adequately cover every aspect affecting the stakeholders which is deliberated in this research. It is also expected that the recommendations provided in this paper will assist stakeholders of Hajj and Umrah to grasp the importance of taking precautions for any crisis similar to COVID-19 when it happens.

This study aims to propose a new simulation approach for a real-life large and complex crowd management which takes into account deep learning algorithm. Moreover, the proposed model also determines the crowd level and also sends an alarm to avoid the crowd from exceeding its limit. Also, the model estimates crowd density in the pictures through which the study evaluates the deep learning algorithm approach to address the problem of crowd congestion. Furthermore, the suggested model comprises of two main components. The first takes the images of the moving crowd and classifies them into five categories such as “heavily crowded, crowded, semi-crowded, light crowded and normal,” whereas the second one comprises of colour warnings (five). The colour of these lights depends upon the results of the process of classification. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes the theoretical background; Section 3 suggests the proposed approach followed by convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm in Section 4. Sections 5 and 6 explain the data set and parameters as well as modelling network. Experiment, results and simulation evaluation are explained in Sections 7 and 8. Finally, this paper ends with conclusion which is Section 9 of this paper.

This paper addresses the issue of large-scale crowd management by exploiting the techniques and algorithms of simulation and deep learning. It focuses on a real-life case study of Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia that exhibits intricate pattern of crowd management. Hajj pilgrimage includes performing Umrah along with hajj that involves several steps which is a sacred prayer of Muslims performed at different time span of the year. Muslims from all over the world visit the holy city of Mecca to perform Tawaf that is one of the stages included in the performance of Hajj or Umrah, it is an obligatory step in prayer. Accordingly, all pilgrims require visiting Mataf to perform Tawaf. It is essential to control the crowd performing Tawaf systematically in a constrained place to avoid any mishap. This study proposed a model for crowd management system by using image classification and a system of alarm to manage millions of people during Hajj. This proposed system highly depends on the adequate data set used to train CNN which is a deep learning technique and has recently drawn the attention of the research community as well as the industry in changing applications of image classification and the recognition of speed. The purpose is to train the model with mapped image data, making it available to be used in classifying the crowd into five categories like crowded, heavily crowded, semi-crowded, normal and light-crowded. The results produce adequate signals as they prove to be helpful in terms of monitoring the pilgrims which shows its usefulness.

After the first attempt of adding the first convolutional layer with 32 filters, the accuracy is not good and stands out at about 55%. Therefore, the algorithm is further improved by adding the second layer with 64 filters. This attempt is a success as it gives more improved results with an accuracy of 97%. After using the dropout fraction as a 0.5 to prevent overfitting, the test and training accuracy of 98% is achieved which is acceptable training and testing accuracy.

This study has proposed a model to solve the problem related to estimation of the level of congestion to avoid any accidents from happening because of it. This can be applied to the monitoring schemes that are used during Hajj, especially in crowd management during Tawaf. The model works as such that it activates an alarm when the default crowd limit exceeds. In this way, chances of the crowd reaching a dangerous level are reduced which minimizes the potential accidents that might take place. The model has a traffic light system, the appearance of red light means that the number of pilgrims in a particular area has exceeded its default limit and then it alerts to stop the migration of people to that particular area. The yellow light indicates that the number of pilgrims entering and leaving a particular area has equalized, then the pilgrims are suggested to slower their pace. Finally, the green light shows that the level of the crowd in a particular area is low and that the pilgrims can move freely in that area. The proposed model is simple and user friendly as it uses the most common traffic light system which makes it easier for the pilgrims to understand and follow accordingly.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of Ibrahim, an ex-offender who has embraced Islam. Ibrahim professes Islam to be the influential element to his desistance process. This study explores Ibrahim’s journey, emphasising and reflecting upon youth; criminality and religiosity. Much of the current research relating to Black men and offending is limited to masculinity, father absence, gangs and criminality. The role of religiosity in the lives of offenders and/or ex-offenders is often overlooked. The authors suggest that identity, religiosity and desistance can raise a host of complexities while highlighting the unique challenges and benefits experienced by Ibrahim, following the practice of religion.

This paper took a qualitative, ethnographic approach, in the form of analysing and exploring Ibrahim’s personal lived experience. The analysis of semi-structured interviews, and reflective diaries, utilising grounded theory allowed the formation of the following three core themes: desistance, religion and identity.

The findings within this paper identify an interlink between desistance, religion and identity. The role of religiosity is becoming increasingly more important in academic social science research. This paper highlights the complexities of all three above intersections.

This paper explores the complexities of religiosity in the desistance process of Ibrahim. Research in relation to former gang members in the UK and the role of religiosity in their lives is fairly under-researched. This paper seeks to build on existing research surrounding gang, further exploring religiosity from a UK context.

Time spent with Ibrahim had to be tightly scheduled, due to the work commitments of both Ibrahim and the researcher. Therefore, planning had to be done ahead in an efficient manner.

Researching the way individuals experience the world is a “growing phenomenon”. This paper aimed to explore the lived experience of religiosity from the perspective of Ibrahim. However, it was important to not stereotype and label all Black males who have embraced Islam and desisted from crime. Therefore, this paper’s intention is not to stereotype Black men, but to raise awareness and encourage further discussion surrounding the role of religiosity in the lives of ex-offenders’.

To the authors’ knowledge, studies specifically focusing on the role of Islam in the life of an ex-offender are few and far between. Therefore, findings from this study are important to develop further understanding surrounding religiosity, offending and desistance. This study explores the lived experiences of Ibrahim, an former gang member and ex-offender who professes Islam to be a fundamental source to his desistance process.

Religious tourism is one of the oldest and fastest-growing segments. This study analyzes religious tourism through the pilgrimage of Muslims to the holy city of Mecca and has the following objectives: (1) establish the motivational dimensions of religious tourism; (2) identify the motivational dimensions that predict the satisfaction of religious tourism and (3) determine the motivational dimensions that predict return, recommend and say positive things about religious tourism applied to the pilgrimage to a sacred city.

The sample consisted of Muslim pilgrims who had visited Mecca. The sample was collected in Bahrain, a country located on the Persian Gulf, where most of its population is Muslim. A total of 380 valid questionnaires were obtained online. For the data analysis, factorial analysis and the multiple regression method enter were performed.

The results show that religious motivations are more important when visiting a sacred city than secular ones. Three motivational dimensions were found: religious, social and cultural and shopping. The three dimensions found have a significant relationship with satisfaction and loyalty. Likewise, it was found that the religious motivational dimension is the factor that most predicts satisfaction and loyalty in the behavior of religious visits to a sacred city.

The main limitation of the present study was the temporality in which the sample was taken because the demand may vary at another time of the year and therefore vary its results.

The authors of the study recommend that holy cities increase the religious motivations of these travelers by periodically researching their needs and organizing services to suit their desired spiritual experience. Also, to improve the social and cultural part, travel agencies and tourist companies to Mecca should promote social and cultural motivation among travelers in an appropriate way by providing service packages that involve visits to cultural and social sites such as museums and cultural centers.

This research will serve as a management guide for public institutions and private companies to develop more efficient planning in religious destinations and sacred cities.

This study is the first to analyze the construct of motivations in the pilgrimage to the city of Mecca, to then establish what the main motivations are that predict satisfaction and loyalty in a religious city. Thus, its results provide important information for tourist destination managers and tourism service providers.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the factors that attract (pull) or discourage (push) Palestinian students from Israel (PSI) to study at a Palestinian university, the Arab American University in Jenin (AAUJ), for the first time since the establishment of Israel in 1948.

A qualitative research method using in-depth interviews with 15 PSI who study at AAUJ attempts to define the motivations behind PSI preferring AAUJ, on one hand, and constraints, on the other hand.

The findings of the study show factors that attract PSI to study at the AAUJ and what subjects they choose to study there, the encounter with a similar culture and nationalism in a Palestinian campus in the occupied West Bank; the most significant difficulties and impediments they face there, whether economic or political, are discussed. This paper contributes to an understanding of the new national re-encounter between two Palestinian groups in a university campus, one under Israel’s occupation and the other that has Israeli citizenship.

It is a unique phenomenon in the trends of international students’ mobility in the world.

This study aims to provide an insight into research related to Muslim travellers in the past 42 years.

Using 342 articles collected from the Scopus database from 1981 to 2023, this study adopted the Bibliometrix in RStudio package and Biblioshiny Web application to analyse the research on Muslim travellers in two main categories: overview and intellectual structures.

The first publication related to Muslim travellers occurred in 1981 and number of publications remained few in the first three decades. Starting 2015, publications on Muslim travellers experienced a growing development of discussions and publications. Four prominent research clusters were identified: “halal tourism”, “hajj”, “Islamic tourism” and “tourist post-purchase”. Themes within the research on Muslim travellers have evolved from the “pilgrimage” to “Islamic tourism” theme. Then, the “Islamic tourism” theme has been expanded to a variety of topics that were primarily relevant to Muslim tourist behaviour. Themes related to “climate change” and “Syria” have been identified as the niche themes that need further study.

Scopus database is regularly updated as the number of papers and journals may increase or decrease from time to time. This may impact on the fluctuation of the theme analysis from the article search at that time.

This study reviews publications related to Muslim travellers over the past four decades. Accordingly, it can aid interested researchers and stakeholders in gaining a more thorough understanding of Muslim traveller research.

This paper aims to propose a new framework for the management of a waqf land registration system in Malaysia that is compliant with Islamic law and the Malaysian legal system. The study sought to answer the following two research questions: what are the issues of the waqf land registration system and how to solve the issues of waqf land registration in Malaysia.

This study used a qualitative research method by using content analysis, legal investigation and doctrinal research. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with lawyers, academicians and executive officers from the Department of Land and Mines, the State Islamic Religious Council and reviewed documents mainly from the Department of Waqf, Zakat and Hajj Malaysia.

A new framework for the management of waqf land registration in Malaysia was identified, which was developed based on current waqf issues such as problematic registration methods, lengthy and complicated procedures, interference in the jurisdiction of the civil court and idle waqf land. The framework overcame the flaw of the previous waqf land registration system in Malaysia.

The new framework will provide solutions to the current registration system within the National Land Code, 1965, which will secure property in the future.