Publication Ethics

Dialogues in Qur’anic and Hadith Studies (ISSN: XXXX-XXXX (online), ISSN: XXXX-XXXX (print)) is a peer-reviewed journal published by Bahtera Al Fikr Press, part of Institut Bahtera Studi Islam. This statement clarifies the ethical responsibilities of all parties involved in the publication process, including authors, editors, editorial board members, reviewers, and the publisher. This statement is based on the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the Code of Practice for Journal Publishers.

Ethical Guideline for Journal Publication

The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal is a fundamental component in the development of a credible and respected body of knowledge. It reflects the quality of the work of authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the principles of scholarly research, academic integrity, transparency, and intellectual responsibility.

Dialogues in Qur’anic and Hadith Studies, as published by Bahtera Al Fikr Press, part of Institut Bahtera Studi Islam, is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards at all stages of publication. The publisher ensures that any commercial interests, including advertising, sponsorship, institutional affiliation, or financial support, do not influence editorial decisions.

In managing its publication, the journal upholds three fundamental ethical principles:

Neutrality – ensuring freedom from conflicts of interest in editorial and review decisions.

Fairness – providing equal opportunity to authors based on academic merit, originality, methodological quality, and relevance to the journal’s scope.

Integrity – ensuring originality and preventing plagiarism, duplication, data fabrication, data falsification, citation manipulation, and other forms of publication misconduct.

These principles apply to all parties involved in the publication process.

Publication Decisions

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which submitted articles should be published. Decisions are based on the article’s academic merit, originality, methodological soundness, relevance to the journal’s Focus and Scope, ethical compliance, and contribution to scholarly discourse in Qur’anic studies, Hadith studies, Islamic hermeneutics, religious authority, living Qur’an and Hadith, digital Qur’an and Hadith studies, manuscript studies, and Islamic textual scholarship.

Editorial decisions are also guided by legal and ethical considerations, including copyright, plagiarism, defamation, research integrity, and publication ethics. The Editor-in-Chief may consult reviewers, section editors, and editorial board members in making publication decisions.

Fair Play

Editors evaluate submitted articles solely based on their intellectual content, scholarly contribution, methodological quality, originality, and relevance to the journal’s scope. Editorial decisions must not be influenced by the authors’ race, gender, religion, nationality, ethnicity, institutional affiliation, political beliefs, academic seniority, or personal relationships.

Confidentiality

Editors, editorial staff, and editorial board members must not disclose any information about a submitted article to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

All submitted articles must be treated as confidential documents. Editors and reviewers must not use unpublished materials, arguments, data, translations, manuscript descriptions, or research findings from submitted articles for personal or academic advantage without the express written consent of the authors.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest (Editors)

Editors must avoid handling articles in which they have a conflict of interest. Conflicts of interest may include personal, institutional, academic, financial, political, religious, or collaborative relationships with the authors or their institutions.

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted article must not be used by editors or editorial board members for their own research without written permission from the authors. If an editor has a conflict of interest, the article should be assigned to another qualified editor.

Duties of Authors

Reporting Standards

Authors must present an accurate, objective, and academically responsible account of the research conducted. The article must contain sufficient detail to allow readers, reviewers, and editors to understand and evaluate the research process, data sources, analytical method, and scholarly contribution.

For textual, historical, philological, hermeneutical, empirical, or digital humanities research, authors must clearly explain the sources, method, and analytical procedure used in the article. Any form of fabrication, falsification, manipulation, selective reporting, or misrepresentation of data, texts, sources, translations, or findings is considered unethical and unacceptable.

Originality and Plagiarism

Authors must ensure that their article is entirely original. If the work, words, ideas, arguments, translations, data, or findings of others are used, they must be properly cited and acknowledged.

Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable. This includes direct copying, improper paraphrasing, unattributed translation, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, and the use of another scholar’s ideas or textual analysis without proper acknowledgment.

The journal may use plagiarism detection software to evaluate the originality of submitted articles. Articles with serious plagiarism or unethical textual overlap will be rejected.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication

Authors must not submit the same article to more than one journal at the same time. Authors must also not publish the same research in multiple venues without proper justification, citation, and editorial approval.

Articles submitted to Dialogues in Qur’anic and Hadith Studies must not have been previously published in any language or format. If the article is derived from a thesis, dissertation, conference paper, research report, or pre-existing academic work, this must be clearly disclosed, and the submitted article must be substantially revised and developed into an original journal article.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Authors must properly acknowledge all sources that have influenced their work. Relevant Qur’anic verses, Hadith texts, tafsir works, syarah works, classical Islamic sources, manuscripts, translations, academic books, journal articles, digital databases, field data, and other scholarly materials must be cited accurately.

Authors should avoid selective citation, misleading citation, excessive self-citation, citation manipulation, or the use of references that are not directly relevant to the article. All references must follow the journal’s required citation style.

Authorship of the Article

Authorship must be limited to individuals who have made significant scholarly contributions to the research. Such contributions may include conceptualization, research design, data collection, textual analysis, interpretation, drafting, critical revision, or final approval of the article.

All co-authors must approve the final version of the article and agree to its submission. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all listed authors have contributed appropriately and that no eligible contributor has been excluded.

The journal does not allow honorary authorship, guest authorship, gift authorship, ghost authorship, or any form of authorship manipulation.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest (Authors)

Authors must disclose any financial, institutional, academic, personal, political, religious, or professional conflicts of interest that could influence the results, interpretation, or presentation of their research.

If there is no conflict of interest, authors should state:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Authors must also disclose all sources of funding or institutional support related to the research, authorship, or publication of the article.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works

If authors discover significant errors, inaccuracies, or ethical problems in their published work, they must promptly notify the journal editor and cooperate with the editorial team in correcting or retracting the article.

Corrections, clarifications, expressions of concern, or retractions may be issued when necessary to preserve the integrity of the scholarly record.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Reviewers assist editors in making editorial decisions and help authors improve the quality of their articles through objective, constructive, and evidence-based feedback. Reviews should evaluate the article’s originality, relevance, methodology, theoretical framework, use of sources, analysis, argumentation, and contribution to the field.

Promptness

Reviewers who feel unqualified to review an assigned article or unable to complete the review within the required time should notify the editor promptly and decline the review invitation.

Confidentiality

Reviewers must treat all articles received for review as confidential documents. They must not share, discuss, copy, or use any part of the article without authorization from the editor.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly, respectfully, and with supporting arguments. Review comments should focus on improving the academic quality of the article.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors where appropriate. Reviewers should also inform the editor of any substantial similarity or overlap between the article under review and any other published or unpublished work known to them.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest (Reviewers)

Reviewers must declare any conflict of interest before accepting a review invitation. If a reviewer has a personal, institutional, academic, financial, political, religious, or collaborative relationship with the authors or their institutions, the reviewer must decline the review.

Reviewers must not use unpublished materials from the article for their own research or personal advantage.

Duties of the Publisher

The publisher is responsible for supporting editorial independence, ethical publication practice, long-term accessibility of published articles, and the integrity of the journal’s publishing process. The publisher must not interfere with editorial decisions based on commercial, institutional, political, or personal interests.

The publisher works with the editorial team to prevent and address publication misconduct, including plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, data falsification, fake peer review, citation manipulation, and unethical authorship.

Ethical Misconduct

Any suspected ethical misconduct will be investigated by the editorial team. The journal may request clarification, documentation, source materials, raw data, or written statements from authors, reviewers, or editors involved.

If misconduct is confirmed, the journal may reject the article, retract the publication, issue a correction, notify the authors’ institution, or take other appropriate actions according to the severity of the case.

Examples of ethical misconduct include plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate submission, data fabrication, data falsification, citation manipulation, fake peer review, undisclosed conflicts of interest, false authorship, misuse of participant data, and serious errors that affect the validity of the published work.