Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Purpose

Al-Qamar is committed to academic integrity, ethical publishing, editorial independence, responsible peer review, and protection of the scholarly record. This Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement explains the ethical responsibilities of authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and the publisher.

This statement applies to all submissions, peer-review processes, accepted manuscripts, published articles, corrections, retractions, complaints, appeals, and post-publication concerns handled by the journal.

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions at Al-Qamar are based on academic merit, originality, relevance to the journal’s aims and scope, methodological quality, ethical compliance, reviewer reports, and editorial assessment.

Editorial decisions are not influenced by publication fee, institutional pressure, personal relationships, nationality, language, religious affiliation, political opinion, gender, ethnicity, or any non-academic consideration.

The publisher supports the journal’s infrastructure, website, production, and publication process, but editorial judgment remains the responsibility of the journal’s editorial leadership.

Duties of Authors

Authors are responsible for ensuring that their submissions are original, accurate, ethically prepared, properly referenced, and not under consideration elsewhere.

Authors must:

  • Submit only original work
  • Properly cite all sources
  • Verify quotations, translations, page numbers, Qur’anic references, Hadith references, legal citations, and historical claims
  • Avoid plagiarism and duplicate publication
  • Avoid fabrication and falsification
  • Identify all genuine contributors
  • Avoid guest, gift, honorary, and ghost authorship
  • Disclose funding and conflicts of interest
  • Obtain ethical approval or permission where required
  • Disclose use of AI-assisted tools where relevant
  • Cooperate with the editorial office during review, revision, correction, or investigation

Submission to Al-Qamar means that authors accept the journal’s academic and ethical requirements.

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made a genuine scholarly contribution to the conception, design, research, analysis, writing, or revision of the manuscript.

All authors must approve the submitted version and the final version accepted for publication. The corresponding author is responsible for communication with the journal, providing accurate metadata, confirming author approval, coordinating revisions, and checking final proofs.

Changes in authorship after submission require a clear explanation and approval from all affected authors. The journal may reject authorship changes where there is insufficient justification.

Guest authorship, gift authorship, honorary authorship, and ghost authorship are not acceptable.

Originality and Plagiarism

Manuscripts submitted to Al-Qamar must be original. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable.

Plagiarism may include:

  • Copying text without proper attribution
  • Paraphrasing without citation
  • Presenting another person’s ideas as one’s own
  • Reusing substantial parts of one’s own published work without disclosure
  • Using translated material without acknowledgement
  • Misrepresenting sources
  • Submitting AI-generated or fabricated content as original scholarship

The journal may use similarity-checking methods where available. Similarity reports are used as editorial tools and are interpreted by editors. They are not treated as automatic decisions.

Duplicate Submission and Duplicate Publication

Authors must not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time. Manuscripts already published elsewhere, or under active consideration elsewhere, are not acceptable.

Material previously presented in a conference, thesis, repository, or working paper may be considered only where this is clearly disclosed and where the manuscript has been developed into a journal-quality scholarly article.

Data Fabrication and Falsification

Fabrication, falsification, manipulation, or misrepresentation of research data, historical evidence, textual evidence, translations, interviews, fieldwork, citations, or archival material is misconduct.

Where necessary, the journal may request supporting evidence, source details, permissions, interview records, archival references, or clarification from authors.

Research Data and Evidence Integrity

In Islamic Studies and related fields, research evidence may include classical texts, manuscripts, archival records, legal documents, interviews, field notes, translations, bibliographic sources, religious citations, and digital materials.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and integrity of all evidence used in their manuscripts. The journal may request supporting material where needed to verify claims, references, translations, or methodology.

Authors must not fabricate, falsify, selectively manipulate, or misrepresent sources, data, translations, quotations, or historical claims.

Citation Ethics and Reference Accuracy

Authors must cite sources accurately and responsibly. Citation manipulation is not acceptable.

Unacceptable practices include:

  • Citation padding
  • Irrelevant citation
  • Coercive citation
  • Citation cartels
  • Fake references
  • Unverified AI-generated references
  • Misleading quotations
  • Incorrect attribution of religious, legal, historical, or textual claims

The journal may require authors to correct references, provide missing details, or remove inaccurate citations before publication.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members must disclose conflicts of interest that could influence, or appear to influence, scholarly judgment.

Conflicts may be financial, institutional, personal, professional, supervisory, ideological, academic, or competitive.

Disclosure does not automatically prevent submission, review, or publication. The purpose of disclosure is transparency and proper management.

Where needed, the journal may appoint an independent editor, seek additional review, request clarification, or publish a conflict-of-interest statement.

Ethical Approval and Human Participants

Where research involves human participants, interviews, private communications, institutional data, fieldwork, or sensitive information, authors must follow appropriate ethical standards and obtain permission, consent, or ethical approval where required.

Authors must protect participant privacy and should not disclose confidential or identifiable information without proper permission.

Sensitive religious, sectarian, legal, or community-related material should be presented responsibly and in professional academic language.

Use of AI-Assisted Tools

AI-assisted tools must not be listed as authors. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, citations, translations, arguments, and ethical compliance of their work.

Authors must disclose substantive use of AI-assisted tools in writing, translation, data analysis, image generation, reference preparation, or other research-related work where relevant.

AI tools must not be used to fabricate references, create false evidence, manipulate data, or replace genuine scholarly contribution. All AI-assisted references, translations, summaries, and claims must be manually verified by the author.

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts, review reports, or editorial correspondence to public AI tools in a way that compromises confidentiality.

Duties of Reviewers

Reviewers support the journal by providing confidential, expert, objective, and constructive evaluation.

Reviewers must:

  • Maintain confidentiality
  • Review only where they have relevant expertise
  • Declare conflicts of interest
  • Avoid personal criticism
  • Provide clear academic reasons for criticism
  • Identify ethical concerns where visible
  • Respect deadlines or inform the editor of delays
  • Not use unpublished material for personal advantage
  • Not share manuscripts with others without editorial permission

Duties of Editors

Editors are responsible for fair handling, editorial independence, confidentiality, reviewer selection, decision-making, and protection of the scholarly record.

Editors must:

  • Evaluate submissions according to academic merit and journal scope
  • Protect the confidentiality of manuscripts
  • Select suitable reviewers
  • Manage conflicts of interest
  • Consider reviewer reports carefully
  • Communicate decisions clearly
  • Handle complaints and appeals fairly
  • Take appropriate action when misconduct is suspected
  • Correct the scholarly record where necessary

Editors may reject a manuscript before review where it does not meet the journal’s academic, ethical, technical, or scope requirements.

Peer-Review Manipulation

Peer-review manipulation is misconduct. It may include false reviewer identities, fake reviewer accounts, fabricated reviewer reports, inappropriate influence on reviewers, undisclosed conflicts, or attempts to interfere with the review process.

Where peer-review manipulation is suspected, the journal may suspend review, reject the manuscript, contact authors for clarification, consult editorial board members, or take further corrective action.

Complaints and Appeals

Authors, readers, reviewers, editors, or institutions may submit complaints or appeals to the editorial office. Complaints should be supported by clear evidence and should identify the manuscript, article, or issue concerned.

Complaints may relate to plagiarism, duplicate publication, authorship, citation manipulation, data integrity, conflicts of interest, peer review, editorial conduct, correction of the scholarly record, or misuse of AI-assisted tools.

Appeals against editorial decisions may be considered where there is evidence of procedural error, misunderstanding, conflict of interest, or substantial academic reason for reconsideration. Disagreement with reviewer opinion alone is not normally sufficient.

The journal may uphold the original decision, request further review, invite revision, issue a correction, publish an expression of concern, retract an article, or take no further action where the complaint is not supported.

Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions

The journal may correct the scholarly record when an error, omission, ethical concern, or serious problem is identified.

Possible actions include:

  • Correction notice
  • Addendum
  • Expression of concern
  • Retraction
  • Withdrawal before publication
  • Editorial note
  • Updated metadata

Corrections are used where the main findings remain reliable but a published item contains errors.

Retractions may be used where findings are unreliable, misconduct is confirmed, plagiarism is substantial, duplicate publication has occurred, peer review has been manipulated, or ethical problems seriously affect the article.

Retraction does not erase the scholarly record; it corrects it.

Withdrawal Before Publication

A manuscript may be withdrawn before publication by the author or by the editorial office in appropriate circumstances.

Author withdrawal should be requested in writing and should include the manuscript title, submission ID where available, reason for withdrawal, and confirmation that all authors agree where applicable.

The editorial office may withdraw a manuscript from consideration where serious ethical concerns arise, authors fail to respond to required queries, duplicate submission is discovered, authorship is disputed, or required declarations are not provided.

Handling Research Misconduct

Where misconduct is suspected, the journal may:

  • Request explanation from authors
  • Review submission and publication records
  • Check similarity or source evidence
  • Consult reviewers or editorial board members
  • Seek additional expert opinion
  • Contact institutions where appropriate
  • Issue correction, expression of concern, or retraction
  • Reject or withdraw the manuscript
  • Take steps to protect the scholarly record

Responses should be proportionate, documented, and consistent with the seriousness of the matter.

Confidentiality

Submitted manuscripts are confidential documents. Editors, reviewers, and editorial staff must not disclose manuscript details except as required for the editorial process.

Confidentiality may be limited where legal duties, serious misconduct, institutional investigation, or protection of the scholarly record requires appropriate disclosure.

Record Keeping

The journal may retain submission files, metadata, reviewer reports, editorial decisions, author declarations, correspondence, proof corrections, permissions, similarity reports where used, DOI information where applicable, revised manuscripts, publication records, and post-publication notices as part of normal journal administration.

These records help the journal explain decisions, respond to queries, maintain editorial continuity, and protect the accuracy of the scholarly record.

Final Statement

Al-Qamar expects all authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and contributors to act with integrity and to support the publication of original, accurate, respectful, and academically valuable research.

The journal reserves the right to take appropriate editorial action where academic misconduct, ethical breach, serious error, or threat to the scholarly record is identified.