Introduction

Thank you for your involvement with SHARIAsource; we are grateful to have you on board and we look forward to a productive partnership. This guide provides details about your role and responsibilities as an editor, and is also intended to familiarize you with the administrative processes in place to facilitate your work on SHARIAsource. If you have questions about this or any other matter, please reach out to SHARIAsource staff at [email protected].

The Editorial Role

The editor takes ownership of his or her geographical area (region, country) or subject matter for SHARIAsource and facilitates publication of primary source and out-of-publication materials related to that area for the SHARIAsource portal. An area or subject matter editor is the site’s designated expert on that topic. The editor serves as a lead contact for other contributors, and both (i) manages submissions of content and contributions, and (ii) conducts topical SHARIAsource outreach to solicit contributions and to engage scholars who may want to contribute to special forums on the site. Editors are expected to gain familiarity with content on our platforms in order to cross-reference and link related material to better scholarly insights and dialogue.

1.     Editors Contributions

In your capacity as SHARIAsource area or subject matter editor, you are encouraged to contribute to the Portal any relevant primary sources that you come across in your own work or otherwise. Primary source contributions may take many forms, including court records, fiqh excerpts, out-of-publication books, and more. [See here for source types.] We encourage editors to share, summarize, and translate (where relevant) such sources, thinking of the Portal as a landing place to share on one platform sources that may contribute to teaching, may be otherwise difficult to find, or that can contribute more generally to a clearinghouse for the scholarly community of Islamic law and society.

Editors may also propose four-post series as part of series of monthly guest editors on the Islamic Law Blog. This route offers a means to deepen your engagement with the sources and reach of your ideas on SHARIAsource platforms and beyond, which reach other scholars and tens of thousands of general readers every month. To propose a guest editor blog series, or other single-post contributions, see the contributor guidelines and use this submission form.

2.     Editing Contributions

Content review and substantive editing are perhaps the most vital aspects of the editor’s role, and they constitute the bulk of the required work of editors. Each editor is to solicit and/or review proposed SHARIAsource submissions from scholars working in his or her area who wish to contribute primary sources to the Portal or source comments on the Blog. We ask that editors make an initial determination as to the quality of the proposed contribution, make a recommendation of acceptance or rejection to the coordinating editor using this form, and work with the contributor to edit their piece and upload it to the Portal or the Blog. Here is a breakdown of the three steps.

  1. Review and Recommend. SHARIAsource editors solicit or receive proposed primary source posts for the SHARIAsource Portal or source comments for the blog. After checking to ensure that the IP permissions enable publication for primary sources (see IP policies), and that the format and content meet the requirements for source comments, please make a recommendation to our coordinating editor to accept or reject the post using this form.
  2. Edit Contributions. Write (or work with the contributor to write) a brief, one-paragraph summary of the primary source’s content. Edit source comments to ensure that the format and citations adhere to the SHARIAsource Style Guide.
  3. Upload Contributions. After editing, post any primary source(s) to the Portal, following the SHARIAsource Portal posting instructions—complete with metadata, author biography, and IP permissions. For the Blog, send any source comments to the coordinating editor for scheduling and posting using this  

3.     Length of Editorial Term

The standard editorial term is one academic year, renewable. Editors are expected to complete the full term, and are to inform the SHARIAsource editorial board (editor-in-chief, coordinating editor) if there are any changes in their circumstances that prevent completion of their editorial role by emailing [email protected]. The SHARIAsource and Islamic Law Blog editorial board reserves the right to terminate the relationship at any time.