As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
The submission has not been previously published (in whatever language or format), nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
As noted in the Author Guidelines, article submissions must be anonymized and accompanied by a separate cover letter including the author contact and affiliation information; reviews and other non-peer-reviewed pieces need not be anonymized.
Author Guidelines
The American Journal of Islam and Society (AJIS) is a double-blind, peer-reviewed interdisciplinary and international journal that publishes a variety of scholarly research on all facets of Islam and the Muslim world: anthropology, economics, history, philosophy and metaphysics, politics, psychology, and law.
Please read the following submission guidelines carefully. Although accepted articles are copyedited and proofread, manuscripts that do not accord with AJIS transliteration or citation style will be returned to the author to be revised.
Whether original articles, book reviews, or other pieces, all submissions are routed through the online submission system. AJIS does not have article processing charges (APC), nor does it have submission charges.
Articles
Original article typescripts must be in English and should be between 7,000 and 10,000 words in length (shorter articles may be accepted when justified by their exceptionally high quality).
Main article submission must include a 250-word (max.) abstract. Avoid including any of the author’s names in headers or footers and avoid any personal references in the body or endnotes that might reveal the author’s identity to reviewers.
Please provide a separate cover letter including the author’s full name, the article title, the author’s affiliation, and contact information (mailing and email address), and a short author biography (up to 75 words). In addition to the information mentioned above, please also include names and, if available, contact information of up to five independent and active scholars who are qualified to evaluate your contribution as blind peer reviewers. By independent and active scholars, we mean scholars who are not in any way involved in producing or already aware of the submitted study and are active, post-doctorate, recognized, and preferably senior scholars in at least one discipline related to the submission.
Format submissions as follows: single-spaced, 12-point font, italics rather than underlining (except with URL addresses), and all illustrations, tables, and figures placed within the text at their approximate location.
Foreign words found in standard English dictionaries (e.g. the Oxford English Dictionary; Webster’s) are not italicized and do not bear diacritical marks.
AJIS style is to follow the Library of Congress conventions for Arabic transliteration. Arabic-language titles (as of a book, treatise, or article) are capitalized according to English title case (i.e. do not capitalize prepositions). Except when they appear as part of a title, proper nouns (e.g. the name of a person or publisher) do not bear diacritical marks, other than hamza ء (’) or ‘ayn ع (‘) (thus Abu Dawud but Sunan Abī Dāwūd). Include the definite article before a name (thus al-Ghazzali, not Ghazzali), and include the closing h for the ta’ marbutah ة.
Article references should be numbered consecutively throughout and appear as endnotes, according to the Chicago style. All bibliographical information must be given in the notes, abbreviating subsequent citations. Include DOI citations of journal articles if available.
Book Reviews
A typical review is 1,000-1,500 words. We typically expect the review back within six weeks after you receive the book. Book reviews do not have footnotes; cite page numbers of the book under review in the text, as necessary.
Click here for a sample review. Click here for a short video explaining the review’s strengths.
AJIS also accepts longer 3000-5000-word book review essays for one or more books of related topics.
When the review is ready, please submit it online at ajis.org. Here is a short video explaining how to upload your work.
Peer-review Process
Articles submitted to AJIS are subject to a rigorous double-blind peer-review process. All articles will be anonymized while under review and all reviews will be treated confidentially. At least two reports per manuscript are collected. A third review will be solicited if the first two differ substantially.
The blind peer review/publication process includes:
The Author writes a research manuscript and submits it online through the "Open Journal Systems"
The Editors do the initial screening and assign scholars in their area of expertise for blind reviews
The Reviewers review the manuscript according to the guidelines provided and verify the quality of the research
The Reviewers return the manuscript to the Editors with a recommendation to reject, revise or accept it (see below “Editorial decisions are made as follows”)
The Editors draft a decision and send it to the Author with the Reviewers' feedback
The Author implements the recommended changes and sends it back to the Editors
The Editors make a final decision to either reject it or send it to publication
Editorial decisions are made as follows:
Accept manuscript as submitted without further revisions.
Accept manuscript after revisions based on reviewers’ comments. Authors shall be given 4 weeks for minor revisions.
Request major revisions. Only one round of major revisions will be allowed. The revised manuscript needs to address all suggested revisions which should be completed within 8 weeks. Discretionary extensions may be granted in agreement with the Co-Editors. The revised manuscript will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.
Reject and encourage resubmission: The manuscript has serious flaws but could potentially make an original contribution. Authors will be encouraged to re-submit a fully revised manuscript.
Reject: The manuscript is academically flawed and makes no original contribution.
Copyright Notice
When an article is accepted for publication, copyrights of the publication are transferred from the author to the Journal and reserved for the Publisher. Permission will be required from the publisher for any work for which the author does not hold copyright and for any substantial extracts from work by other authors. The copyright holder giving permission may instruct the author on the form of acknowledgment to be followed. Alternatively, we recommend following the style: “Reproduced with permission from [author], [book/journal title]; published by [publisher], [year]”.
No commercial reproduction is allowed without the express permission of the publisher.
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
