Peer Review Process

Islamicate Futures: Knowledge, Ethics, and Muslim Societies

The Peer Review Process of Islamicate Futures: Knowledge, Ethics, and Muslim Societies is designed to ensure academic quality, methodological rigor, theoretical originality, ethical integrity, and international relevance of all manuscripts published in the journal. The journal applies a double-blind peer review system, in which the identities of authors and reviewers are kept confidential throughout the review process.

The peer review process is conducted to evaluate whether a submitted manuscript makes a meaningful scholarly contribution to future-oriented Islamic and Islamicate studies, particularly in the areas of Islamic knowledge traditions, Islamic ethics, maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah, Qur’anic and Hadith studies, digital Islam, artificial intelligence and religious authority, Muslim societies, Islamic education, sustainability, public policy, and global futures.

All manuscripts submitted to Islamicate Futures: Knowledge, Ethics, and Muslim Societies must pass several stages of editorial assessment before publication. These stages include initial administrative screening, editorial screening, plagiarism and similarity checking, double-blind peer review, editorial decision, author revision, final editorial verification, copyediting, proofreading, and publication.

Initial Administrative Screening

After submission through the Open Journal System (OJS), each manuscript will first undergo an administrative screening by the editorial office. This stage is intended to ensure that the manuscript meets the basic submission requirements of the journal.

The editorial office will check whether:

the manuscript has been submitted through the journal’s official OJS platform;

the manuscript follows the official article template;

the manuscript is written in clear academic English;

the manuscript file has been anonymized for double-blind peer review;

the title, abstract, keywords, author metadata, references, and supplementary files are complete;

the manuscript follows the required citation and reference style;

the manuscript includes required statements on funding, conflict of interest, data availability, and research ethics where applicable;

and the manuscript is within the recommended word length.

Manuscripts that do not meet the administrative requirements may be returned to the author for technical correction before being considered for editorial screening. Manuscripts that substantially fail to follow the journal template or submission requirements may be declined without external review.

Editorial Screening

Manuscripts that pass the administrative screening will be evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief or an assigned handling editor. This stage determines whether the manuscript is suitable for the journal’s Focus and Scope and whether it has sufficient scholarly merit to proceed to peer review.

During editorial screening, the editor will assess:

relevance to the journal’s Focus and Scope;

originality and novelty of the research;

clarity of the research problem;

strength of the research gap;

appropriateness of the method or analytical approach;

quality of theoretical framework;

engagement with current and international scholarship;

clarity of academic argument;

ethical compliance;

and potential contribution to Islamic and Islamicate studies.

The journal may reject a manuscript at the editorial screening stage if it is outside the Focus and Scope, lacks originality, has weak methodology, contains unclear arguments, has poor English readability, fails to meet publication ethics standards, or does not demonstrate sufficient contribution to international scholarship.

Similarity and Plagiarism Screening

All manuscripts submitted to Islamicate Futures: Knowledge, Ethics, and Muslim Societies will be screened using plagiarism or similarity detection software before being sent to reviewers. This process is conducted to protect academic integrity and prevent plagiarism, duplicate publication, inappropriate paraphrasing, text recycling, and unethical use of sources.

The journal expects manuscripts to have an academically acceptable similarity level. As a general policy, the similarity index should not exceed 15%, excluding references, properly quoted materials, and standard methodological phrases. However, the editorial decision is not based solely on numerical similarity percentage. The editor will examine the similarity report qualitatively to determine whether the overlap represents legitimate academic usage or unethical textual duplication.

Manuscripts containing plagiarism, fabricated references, excessive overlap, unattributed translation, citation manipulation, or duplicated publication may be rejected immediately. In cases where minor similarity issues are detected, the manuscript may be returned to the author for correction before further review.

Double-Blind Peer Review

Islamicate Futures: Knowledge, Ethics, and Muslim Societies applies a double-blind peer review process. The identities of authors are not disclosed to reviewers, and the identities of reviewers are not disclosed to authors. This system is intended to promote fairness, impartiality, academic objectivity, and critical evaluation based on scholarly quality rather than personal or institutional identity.

Each manuscript that passes editorial screening will normally be reviewed by at least two independent reviewers with relevant expertise in the manuscript’s subject area. Reviewers may be selected from the journal’s reviewer database, editorial board recommendations, international academic networks, or specialists identified by the handling editor.

Reviewers are selected based on their academic expertise, publication record, methodological competence, ethical reliability, and independence from the author(s). Reviewers must not have any conflict of interest with the submitted manuscript, including personal, institutional, financial, supervisory, collaborative, or competitive relationships with the author(s).

Reviewer Responsibilities

Reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive, and scholarly evaluations of submitted manuscripts. Reviewer comments should help authors improve the quality, clarity, rigor, and contribution of their work.

Reviewers are requested to assess:

the originality and significance of the manuscript;

the relevance of the manuscript to the journal’s Focus and Scope;

the clarity of the research problem and objectives;

the strength of the research gap and novelty;

the appropriateness of the theoretical framework;

the adequacy of the method or analytical approach;

the quality of evidence, data, textual analysis, or conceptual argument;

the engagement with relevant and recent scholarship;

the clarity and coherence of the discussion;

the validity of the conclusion;

the quality of English academic writing;

the accuracy and relevance of references;

the ethical integrity of the research;

and the contribution of the manuscript to international scholarship.

Reviewers must maintain confidentiality and must not share, discuss, copy, cite, or use any part of the manuscript before publication. Reviewers must also declare any potential conflict of interest and decline the review invitation if impartial evaluation is not possible.

Review Criteria

The journal uses the following criteria to evaluate submitted manuscripts:

1. Relevance to Focus and Scope
   The manuscript must be clearly aligned with the scholarly orientation of Islamicate Futures: Knowledge, Ethics, and Muslim Societies.

2. Originality and Novelty
   The manuscript must present a clear research gap and offer a new conceptual, empirical, methodological, interpretive, or theoretical contribution.

3. Methodological Rigor
   The manuscript must use an appropriate and transparent method, whether textual, historical, hermeneutical, legal, philosophical, qualitative, quantitative, comparative, digital humanities-based, bibliometric, or systematic review-based.

4. Theoretical Contribution
   The manuscript must demonstrate theoretical clarity and contribute to broader scholarly debates in Islamic studies, Islamicate studies, religious studies, ethics, law, education, digital religion, or Muslim social studies.

5. Quality of Analysis
   The manuscript must provide a coherent, evidence-based, and analytically rigorous discussion supported by relevant data, texts, sources, field materials, digital corpora, manuscripts, legal documents, or scholarly literature.

6. International Relevance
   The manuscript must demonstrate relevance beyond a purely local or descriptive case. Local studies may be accepted only if they offer a clear conceptual, comparative, methodological, or theoretical contribution.

7. Ethical Compliance
   The manuscript must comply with research ethics, publication ethics, authorship standards, citation integrity, data integrity, and responsible use of artificial intelligence.

8. Academic Writing Quality
   The manuscript must be written in clear, coherent, and readable academic English.

Review Timeline

The journal aims to conduct the review process efficiently while maintaining academic rigor. The estimated timeline is as follows:

Initial administrative screening: 1–2 weeks

Editorial screening: 1–3 weeks

Peer review process: 4–8 weeks

Author revision: 2–4 weeks, depending on the extent of revision required

Final editorial evaluation: 1–2 weeks

Copyediting, proofreading, and publication preparation: 1–3 weeks

The timeline may vary depending on reviewer availability, manuscript complexity, revision quality, and editorial workload. Authors will be notified through the OJS platform regarding the progress and decision status of their manuscript.

Editorial Decisions

Based on reviewer reports and editorial assessment, the journal may issue one of the following decisions:

Accepted

The manuscript is accepted for publication without substantial revision. Minor editorial corrections may still be required during copyediting and proofreading.

Accepted with Minor Revisions

The manuscript is considered suitable for publication after minor revisions. Authors are expected to address reviewer and editor comments carefully and submit a revised version within the specified deadline.

Major Revisions Required

The manuscript has potential for publication but requires substantial revision. Authors must revise the manuscript thoroughly, respond to all reviewer comments, and explain how the manuscript has been improved. A manuscript requiring major revision may be sent back to the original reviewers for further evaluation.

Resubmit for Review

The manuscript requires extensive revision in terms of structure, argument, method, analysis, or contribution. The revised manuscript will be treated as a new or substantially revised submission and may undergo another round of peer review.

Rejected

The manuscript is not suitable for publication in the journal. Reasons for rejection may include lack of originality, weak methodology, poor theoretical contribution, insufficient engagement with scholarship, ethical concerns, poor readability, or misalignment with the journal’s Focus and Scope.

Revision Process

Authors receiving minor or major revision decisions must submit a revised manuscript along with a detailed response to reviewers. The response should explain how each comment has been addressed. Authors should respond respectfully and systematically to all reviewer and editor comments.

The revised manuscript should clearly indicate changes made during revision. Authors may use tracked changes or provide a clean revised version according to editorial instructions.

Failure to submit revisions within the specified deadline without prior communication may result in withdrawal of the manuscript from the editorial process.

Final Editorial Evaluation

After the revised manuscript is submitted, the handling editor will evaluate whether the author(s) have adequately addressed the reviewer and editorial comments. For minor revisions, the editor may make the final decision without sending the manuscript back to reviewers. For major revisions, the manuscript may be returned to the original reviewers or assigned to new reviewers if necessary.

The final decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief or the assigned handling editor. The journal reserves the right to reject a manuscript if the revision does not adequately address the required changes, even if the manuscript previously received a revise-and-resubmit decision.

Confidentiality

All manuscripts submitted to Islamicate Futures: Knowledge, Ethics, and Muslim Societies are treated as confidential documents. Editors, reviewers, and editorial staff must not disclose information about submitted manuscripts to anyone outside the editorial and peer review process.

Reviewers must not use unpublished materials from submitted manuscripts for their own research or personal advantage. Editors must also protect the confidentiality of reviewer identities and author information in accordance with the double-blind review system.

Conflict of Interest

Editors and reviewers must declare any conflict of interest that may affect their ability to evaluate a manuscript fairly. Conflicts of interest may include institutional affiliation, recent collaboration, supervisory relationship, personal relationship, financial interest, academic competition, or ideological conflict.

If a conflict of interest is identified, the editor or reviewer must withdraw from the review process. The Editor-in-Chief will assign another editor or reviewer to ensure impartial evaluation.

Ethical Considerations in Peer Review

The peer review process must be conducted with fairness, professionalism, confidentiality, and respect. Reviewers should provide constructive criticism and avoid hostile, discriminatory, personal, or defamatory comments.

The journal does not tolerate unethical review practices, including breach of confidentiality, misuse of unpublished material, delayed review for competitive advantage, coercive citation, discriminatory evaluation, or undisclosed conflict of interest.

If misconduct is suspected during the review process, the editorial board will investigate the matter according to established publication ethics procedures.

Use of Artificial Intelligence in Peer Review

Reviewers and editors must not upload unpublished manuscripts, reviewer reports, confidential data, or author information into public generative artificial intelligence tools or external AI platforms that may store, process, or reuse the submitted material. Manuscripts under review are confidential documents and must be protected throughout the review process.

AI-assisted tools may only be used for limited language support or administrative assistance when confidentiality, privacy, and data protection can be ensured. The intellectual evaluation, recommendation, and final judgment must remain the responsibility of human reviewers and editors.

Reviewers and editors remain fully accountable for the accuracy, fairness, confidentiality, and integrity of their evaluations.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors may submit an appeal if they believe that an editorial decision was based on a misunderstanding, factual error, procedural irregularity, or reviewer bias. Appeals must be submitted in writing to the editorial office with a clear explanation and supporting evidence.

Appeals will be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and, where necessary, by members of the editorial board who were not involved in the original decision. The appeal process does not guarantee reversal of the editorial decision. The final decision after appeal is binding.

Complaints regarding peer review, editorial conduct, publication ethics, or conflicts of interest will be handled confidentially and fairly according to the journal’s publication ethics policy.

Post-Acceptance Process

After acceptance, the manuscript will proceed to copyediting, layout editing, proofreading, and final publication. Authors are responsible for reviewing the proof carefully and correcting typographical, formatting, or factual errors. Substantial changes to the manuscript after acceptance are not allowed unless approved by the editor.

The final published article will be made available online through the journal website and assigned appropriate publication metadata. The journal may also disseminate published articles through indexing services, academic repositories, scholarly databases, and official communication channels.

Commitment to Review Quality

Islamicate Futures: Knowledge, Ethics, and Muslim Societies is committed to maintaining a transparent, rigorous, and ethical peer review process. The journal seeks to ensure that every published article contributes meaningfully to international scholarship and advances future-oriented research on Islamic knowledge traditions, ethics, digital transformation, and Muslim societies.