The Journal of Islamic Law and its related Forum now welcomes submissions of Articles, Essays, and Comments. We prefer that you submit your materials directly through the journal submission website. We ask that all authors comply with the following standards.

How to Submit

  • Choose a Submission Type. All new submissions should be identified as an Article, Essay, or other Submission Type. For the full list of Submission Types and parameters for each, please see submission types. If in doubt, please use your best judgment. We will make adjustments if needed, informing you of any changes.
  • Enter Submission Information. We require certain metadata to help process your submission. Mandatory fields include Title, Abstract (not more than 250 words), and Keywords. Your name and institution—included through registration—will be redacted from submissions submitted for peer review.
  • Upload your manuscript. Please upload your piece and any additional related documents, including tables & charts, data sets, pictures, etc. Please also indicate whether you are interested in creating an Online Companion to your piece, if accepted, which will allow you to publish your primary sources in the online community and update your own bibliography.
  • Confirm and submit. Review your documents, confirm, and submit. We require exclusive submission. Each submission goes through an extensive peer review process, which may take 6-8 weeks.

When to Submit

We accept submissions on a rolling basis. However, we publish twice a year: (1) a Spring and Summer Issue, published in late June), and (2) a Fall and Winter Issue, published in late December. Accordingly, submissions received after May will be automatically considered for the year’s second issue, and submissions after November will be automatically considered for the first issue of the following year.

 What to Include in Your Submission

  • Manuscript Text. The manuscript in Word format, TNR, with footnotes that include full citations [rather than endnotes].
  • Bibliography. The bibliography should include a list of the primary and secondary sources used along with URLs for any online references. The bibliography may be appended as the last page of the manuscript, or submitted as an additional document.
  • Indication of Interest in Online Companion: For Sharing Primary Sources. The Journal, along with Portal aims to meet the goal of providing content and context on Islamic law to academics. Should your piece be chosen for publication, we will consider creating an online companion for it on the SHARIAsource Portal, where we will work with you to upload and all the cited primary sources with short summaries. (For a prior example, see the Online Companion to Justice & Leadership in Early Islamic Courts (2017).) If we opt to create an online companion for your work, we will ask that you send pdfs of all primary sources (relevant excerpts are sufficient) with short summaries, to be uploaded to the Portal. On a case-by-case basis, we will pair you with a research assistant to facilitate your work and provide space for you to update your work or sources online as further sources come to light.

Submissions Types

We are actively accepting scholarship submission to the new Harvard Journal in Islamic Law for new scholarship in Islamic law, and its related Forum for new developments in Islamic law scholarship, cases, and AI/Digital Humanities. Submissions may take many forms, including: Articles, Essays, Case Briefs, Student Notes, Scholarship Reviews, Tech Reviews, Forum Comments or Responses (by open submissions and invitation), Symposia Participation on New Scholarship (by invitation), and Roundtable Contributions on Recent Islamic caselaw or Digital Islamic Law (by invitation). The below sections describe each submission type, parameters and word count, and the policies for peer review.

Submission Descriptions & Parameters

  • Articles and Essays: Articles present sustained works of original research on some aspect of Islamic or comparative law; essays are usually narrower in scope. While the line between them is not rigid, we recommend that article submissions have fewer than 25,000 words, including footnotes; and essay submissions have fewer than 8,000 words, including footnotes.
  • Notes: Notes are student-written works typically available to Harvard students. Note submissions should have fewer than 8,000 words, including footnotes.
  • Case Briefs: Case Briefs present the basic facts of a recent cases related to Islamic law in Muslim-majority or Muslim-minority countries. Submissions should have fewer than 1,500 words, including footnotes.
  • Reviews—Scholarship Reviews: Article and Book Reviews address recent publications on Islamic law, individually or collectively. Longer reviews should be submitted as Review Essays or Notes [see above]. Tech Reviews: Tech Reviews of “Digital Islamic Law” present analysis of AI tools, databases, or other sources for the study of Islamic law or related fields in history, biography, or language. Tech reviews should provide a narrative review of the digital tool that draws out the relevance to Islamic law scholarship. Submissions should include pictures, links, and information on source access (public or proprietary). For both Scholarship Reviews and Tech Reviews, submissions should not exceed 1,500 words, including footnotes and related information. Reviews and longer Responses to recent Journal Articles (up to 8,000 words) may also be considered for Forum publication. [See below.]
  • Forum Submissions: The Harvard Forum in Islamic Law is the Journal’s online companion, where we publish shorter and timelier pieces. While most of our Forum publications are solicited, we welcome submissions by scholars interested in addressing recent legal, scholarly, and digital/AI developments in Islamic law or library or institutional sources for accessing it. Forum Submissions may include Case Briefs, Reviews [see above], or Comments and Responses. Comments are less formal than Articles and Essays, and they are shorter. We also solicit and publish Responses to other scholars’ articles and books on the Forum. While Responses are typically solicited works engaging recent scholarship published in the Journal, but we welcome submissions for such Responses as well. Comment and Response submissions should have fewer than 8,000 words, including footnotes.
  • Symposia & Roundtables: Please check our website regularly for our Call for Submissions. We hold Symposia on issues of new scholarship, and Roundtables on new developments in caselaw or AI and digital Islamic law several times a year. The format and length limitations for each symposium varies and will be announced separately.

Citations

  • All citations should generally adhere to The Bluebook or to the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), 15th edition. Additional or alternative citation styles should include an explanatory note and maintain internal consistency throughout the manuscript. For a more detailed explanation of suggested citation and style for all submissions, please refer to our Authors’ Style Guide.

Policies: Peer Review

  • Anonymity: All submissions undergo a process of double-blind peer review. Accordingly, please remove all identifying information from your manuscript, and file name before submission (including your name, affiliation, and acknowledgments). Identifying information in headers and footnotes should be removed as well.
  • Peer Review Process: Submissions that meet the basic standards of good writing and make a scholarly contribution, go through a double-blind process of peer review prior to publication. Each piece is sent to at least two peer reviewers who are expected to give feedback on whether to publish, reject, or revise and resubmit the piece, together with basic comments about why. Should a conflict arise between two peer reviewers, this may be resolved by sending the piece to a third reviewer. The peer review process typically takes 6-8 weeks.
  • Expedited Review (Limited): Please indicate whether you need to request an expedited review in the “Comments for the Editor,” explaining the reason for your request. We do our best to honor requests for expedited review only in exceptional cases (e.g., tenure review, time sensitivity for recent developments, etc.). However, we cannot eliminate any of the stages of review stages and will apprise you of a revised timeline where possible.