AI Policy

Reviewed annually

1. Introduction

Islamicate Futures: Knowledge, Ethics, and Muslim Societies is committed to upholding the highest standards of academic integrity, transparency, originality, accountability, and ethical publishing. The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies presents both opportunities and ethical challenges in scholarly communication, especially in the fields of Islamicate futures studies, Islamic knowledge traditions, Islamic ethics, Qur’anic and Hadith studies, maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah, digital Islam, artificial intelligence and religious authority, Muslim societies, sustainability, public policy, and interdisciplinary Islamic and Islamicate studies.

This policy provides clear guidance on the responsible, transparent, and accountable use of AI across all stages of article preparation, peer review, editorial management, and publication. The journal acknowledges that AI may support certain technical, linguistic, analytical, and editorial tasks, but it cannot replace human intellectual responsibility, scholarly judgment, originality, source verification, religious-textual accuracy, methodological rigor, and ethical accountability.

2. Scope

This policy applies to all participants involved in the publication process of Islamicate Futures: Knowledge, Ethics, and Muslim Societies, including authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and the publisher.

This policy covers all forms of AI and AI-assisted technologies, including large language models, text generators, chatbots, translation tools, grammar-checking tools, image generators, reference management automation, data analysis tools, transcription tools, corpus analysis systems, bibliometric tools, coding assistance, and other automated or semi-automated technologies used in research, writing, reviewing, editing, or publishing.

3. Disclosure of AI Use

Transparency is a mandatory requirement. Authors must disclose any use of AI tools in the preparation of an article. The disclosure must clearly state the name of the tool, the purpose of its use, the stage at which it was used, and the extent of human oversight.

AI use must be disclosed in the cover letter and in the article itself. If AI was used only for language editing, grammar checking, spelling correction, or formatting assistance, the disclosure may be placed in the Acknowledgments section. If AI was used for data analysis, corpus processing, translation support, coding, visualization, bibliometric mapping, image generation, or other substantive research activities, the disclosure must be included in the Method section.

Authors are fully responsible for verifying the accuracy, reliability, originality, and ethical acceptability of all AI-assisted outputs. AI-generated content must not be accepted without critical human review, source verification, scholarly revision, and proper citation.

4. Permitted and Prohibited Uses of AI

4.1 Permitted Uses

AI tools may be used for limited supportive purposes, provided that their use is transparent, ethical, and does not compromise the originality or intellectual contribution of the article. Permitted uses include language editing, grammar checking, spelling correction, translation support with human verification, reference formatting assistance, transcription support, data visualization based on verified data, and technical support in corpus, textual, bibliometric, or digital analysis.

In studies involving Qur’anic texts, Hadith materials, classical Islamic sources, manuscripts, Arabic translations, Islamic legal documents, fatwas, digital religious platforms, or Muslim communities, any AI-assisted output must be carefully checked against reliable primary and secondary sources. Authors must ensure that AI does not introduce inaccurate translations, fabricated references, false attributions, unsupported interpretations, distorted religious meanings, or misleading claims.

4.2 Prohibited Uses

AI systems must not be listed as authors or co-authors. Authorship is limited to human contributors who are capable of taking responsibility for the integrity, originality, accuracy, and accountability of the article.

Authors may not delegate intellectual responsibility to AI tools. The use of AI to generate substantial article content, fabricate sources, create false citations, manipulate data, falsify findings, produce unsupported claims, replace scholarly analysis, or imitate academic originality is strictly prohibited.

Authors are also prohibited from uploading confidential materials, unpublished articles, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, private datasets, interview transcripts, restricted manuscript images, sensitive religious materials, or confidential community data to external AI platforms that may store, reuse, or disclose such data.

Any AI-generated content that introduces bias, misinformation, fabricated evidence, inaccurate religious attribution, distorted Qur’anic or Hadith interpretation, misleading legal reasoning, or unsupported academic claims is unacceptable.

5. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors bear full responsibility for the integrity, accuracy, originality, and ethical compliance of their articles, including any AI-assisted content. All AI-generated or AI-assisted outputs must be reviewed, verified, corrected, and approved by the authors before submission.

Authors must ensure that the article complies with the journal’s publication ethics, plagiarism policy, authorship policy, citation standards, research integrity requirements, and responsible use of AI. The use of AI does not reduce the responsibility of authors for errors, inaccuracies, ethical violations, plagiarism, fabricated references, false quotations, mistranslations, or misinterpretation of sources.

Authors must include one of the following statements in their submission:

If AI tools were used:

“The authors used [Tool Name] for [specific purpose]. All outputs were reviewed, verified, and revised by the authors, who take full responsibility for the content of the article.”

If no AI tools were used:

“No AI-assisted technologies were used in the preparation of this article.”

6. Peer Reviewers

Reviewers must maintain strict confidentiality throughout the peer review process. Reviewers must not upload submitted articles, article excerpts, unpublished data, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, author information, or confidential research materials to AI platforms or other external tools that may retain, process, or reuse confidential content.

AI tools may only be used by reviewers for limited purposes, such as improving the clarity, grammar, or structure of review comments. AI must not be used to replace the reviewer’s own scholarly judgment, critical evaluation, methodological assessment, ethical assessment, or recommendation.

Any use of AI by reviewers must be disclosed to the handling editor. Reviewers remain fully responsible for the accuracy, fairness, confidentiality, and integrity of their review reports.

7. Editors and Editorial Board Members

Editors and editorial board members may use AI tools in limited and responsible ways to support editorial processes, such as plagiarism detection, metadata verification, reference checking, workflow management, language screening, and technical quality control.

However, all editorial decisions must be made by human editors. AI must not determine acceptance, rejection, revision decisions, reviewer selection without human oversight, or final publication decisions. Editors must ensure that the use of AI does not compromise confidentiality, fairness, editorial independence, peer review integrity, author rights, reviewer rights, or the credibility of the scholarly record.

Editors must not upload confidential submitted articles, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, author identities, reviewer identities, or unpublished research materials to AI systems that may store, reuse, or disclose data.

8. Ethical Standards and Alignment

This policy aligns with international best practices in scholarly publishing and is guided by recommendations from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), STM Association, UNESCO, and major academic publishers.

Islamicate Futures: Knowledge, Ethics, and Muslim Societies emphasizes that AI must be used to support, not replace, academic rigor, source verification, ethical responsibility, critical reasoning, religious-textual accuracy, and scholarly accountability. In the context of Islamic and Islamicate studies, special care must be taken to ensure that AI-assisted work does not misrepresent sacred texts, classical Islamic sources, translations, manuscript evidence, legal reasoning, religious authority, Muslim communities, or established scholarly debates.

9. Violations and Consequences

Violations of this policy may result in editorial action. Depending on the severity of the violation, the journal may reject the article, request clarification, require revision, withdraw acceptance, retract a published article, notify the author’s institution, or impose temporary or permanent restrictions on future submissions.

Examples of violations include undisclosed AI use, AI-generated fabricated references, AI-assisted plagiarism, use of AI to manipulate data or findings, uploading confidential review materials to AI systems, false authorship claims, inaccurate AI-generated religious interpretation, fabricated translations, and failure to verify AI-generated content.

When necessary, the journal may issue corrections, expressions of concern, or retraction notices in accordance with its publication ethics and retraction policies.

10. Policy Review and Updates

This policy will be reviewed annually and updated when necessary to reflect developments in AI technologies, international publishing standards, indexing requirements, and ethical guidelines in academic publishing.

The journal reserves the right to amend this policy in response to new ethical challenges, technological changes, legal developments, or recommendations from recognized scholarly publishing organizations.