Public notions of Islamic leadership has had a political branding provoked by the emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS). The paper argues against these notions and puts forth that the Islamic concept of leadership is fundamentally worship-centred, nurturing, service-oriented, and ethical based on primary sources, literature on Islamic leadership, and oral accounts from a Tausug community in the Sulu archipelago. Tausug constructs of leadership are expressed in figurative and symbolic terms, either evoking the Islamic qualities of leadership or alluding to the all-encompassing responsibility expected of a leader.