Author_Guidelines

Author Guidelines and Types of Manuscripts

1. About the Journal

IJTIHAD: Jurnal Hukum dan Ekonomi Islam is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published by the Faculty of Sharia, University of Darussalam Gontor, Indonesia. The journal publishes scholarly contributions in the fields of law, Islamic law, and Islamic economics.

The journal publishes research that contributes to the development of legal and Islamic economic scholarship through rigorous analysis, engagement with relevant literature, and clear academic argumentation. Manuscripts must fall within the journal’s aims and scope and demonstrate a meaningful contribution to the relevant field.

IJTIHAD is published twice a year, in June and December. Its publication schedule follows a thematic arrangement: odd-semester issues focus on law, while even-semester issues focus on Islamic economics.

Submission of a manuscript does not guarantee acceptance. All submissions are subject to editorial screening and, where appropriate, the journal’s double-blind peer-review process.

2. Types of Manuscripts

IJTIHAD considers scholarly manuscripts that make a substantive contribution to legal studies, Islamic law, or Islamic economics. The following categories describe the principal forms of scholarly contribution considered by the journal.

2.1 Original Research Articles

Original research articles report findings from research that addresses a clearly defined question or problem. They may use doctrinal legal research, empirical methods, qualitative or quantitative approaches, comparative legal analysis, or other methods appropriate to the research question.

Manuscripts should explain the research problem, methodological approach, findings, and contribution to existing scholarship. Legal analysis should demonstrate engagement with relevant legal sources, while empirical research should provide a transparent account of its data and analytical procedures.

2.2 Doctrinal and Normative Legal Studies

These articles examine legal rules, principles, doctrines, judgments, legislation, or legal institutions through systematic legal analysis. In Islamic law, manuscripts may examine Qur'anic and hadith evidence, classical and contemporary jurisprudence, principles of Islamic legal theory, fatwas, legislation, or the relationship between Islamic legal reasoning and contemporary legal systems.

Authors should identify the legal problem, explain the sources and method of interpretation, and develop a reasoned argument. Merely describing legal provisions or summarizing scholarly opinions without critical analysis is insufficient.

2.3 Comparative Legal and Islamic Economic Studies

These manuscripts compare legal systems, schools of jurisprudence, regulatory frameworks, institutions, policies, or approaches to Islamic economics. Comparisons should use clearly defined criteria and explain the significance of similarities and differences.

Authors should avoid superficial comparisons and demonstrate how the comparative analysis contributes to legal understanding, theory, institutional practice, or policy development.

2.4 Conceptual and Theoretical Articles

Conceptual and theoretical articles develop, critically examine, or refine concepts, theories, analytical frameworks, or scholarly arguments relevant to the journal’s scope.

Such manuscripts must present a clear intellectual problem, engage critically with relevant literature, and explain the originality and implications of the proposed argument or framework. A purely descriptive exposition of a theory is not sufficient.

2.5 Literature Reviews and Systematic Reviews

Literature review articles synthesize and critically evaluate existing scholarship to identify developments, debates, research gaps, methodological limitations, or directions for future research.

Systematic reviews must explain their review questions, search strategy, information sources, eligibility criteria, screening procedures, and methods of synthesis in sufficient detail to allow readers to assess the rigor of the review. Authors should report limitations and avoid overstating conclusions beyond the available evidence.

A review article must offer analytical synthesis rather than merely a sequence of summaries of individual publications.

2.6 Case Law, Regulatory, and Policy Analysis

These articles critically analyze judicial decisions, legislation, regulatory developments, institutional practices, or public policies relevant to law, Islamic law, and Islamic economics.

Authors should explain the context and significance of the selected case, regulation, or policy; establish appropriate analytical criteria; and develop a reasoned evaluation of its legal principles, implementation, implications, or limitations. Where relevant, authors should distinguish the applicable legal framework from their own interpretation or normative recommendation.

Editorial note: All manuscript categories remain subject to editorial screening. The Editor-in-Chief may determine whether a submission fits the journal’s scope and whether its scholarly contribution is appropriate for further review. The journal does not guarantee acceptance or publication for any manuscript category.

3. General Requirements for Submission

Submitted manuscripts must meet the following requirements:

1. Relevance: The manuscript must fall within the journal’s scope and the thematic focus of the relevant issue.

2. Originality: The manuscript must present original scholarly work and must not have been published previously, in whole or in substantial part, or be under consideration by another journal at the same time.

3. Scholarly contribution: The manuscript must identify a clear research problem and explain its contribution to existing scholarship.

4. Methodological rigor: The methods, sources, analytical framework, and reasoning must be appropriate to the research question and sufficiently transparent.

5. Accuracy and verifiability: Factual claims, legal provisions, data, quotations, and references must be accurate and verifiable.

6. Academic writing: The manuscript must be clearly structured, logically argued, and written in appropriate academic language.

7. Ethical compliance: Authors must comply with the journal’s policies on publication ethics, authorship, competing interests, plagiarism, AI use, and research misconduct.

8. Submission format: The manuscript must be prepared and submitted through the journal’s official online submission system in Microsoft Word format, following the instructions provided in OJS.

Authors should select the appropriate journal section in OJS and complete all required submission fields. The title, abstract, keywords, author details, affiliations, and other metadata must accurately reflect the submitted manuscript.

4. Manuscript Structure and Formatting

Unless the selected article type requires a different structure, manuscripts should follow the organization below.

4.1 Title

The title must be informative, concise, and specific to the central issue or argument of the manuscript. It should avoid unnecessary words, ambiguous wording, and uncommon abbreviations.

The journal’s current formatting guidelines specify a title of no more than 15 words, in bold, 16-point font, and left-aligned. Authors should ensure that the title entered in OJS matches the manuscript.

4.2 Abstract

The abstract must not exceed 250 words. It should concisely state the research problem or objective, approach or method, principal findings or argument, and contribution of the manuscript.

The abstract must be understandable independently of the full text and must not contain unsupported claims or references that are unnecessary to explain the study.

4.3 Keywords

Provide three to five keywords that represent the manuscript’s central concepts, subject area, method, or analytical focus. Keywords should be specific and useful for indexing and discovery.

4.4 Introduction

The introduction should establish the research context, explain the problem, and engage with relevant scholarship. It should identify the state of the art, explain the gap or unresolved issue addressed by the manuscript, and state the research question or objective.

Where appropriate, the introduction should also explain the manuscript’s originality and contribution. A general background that does not lead to a clearly defined scholarly problem is insufficient.

4.5 Research Method or Analytical Approach

Authors must explain the method, analytical framework, or approach used to address the research question.

For doctrinal and normative legal research, this may include the legal materials examined, the approach to legal interpretation, the jurisprudential framework, and the criteria used to evaluate legal arguments.

For empirical research, authors should describe the research design, data sources, selection or sampling procedures, data collection, and analysis, as appropriate to the study.

For literature reviews, authors should explain how the literature was identified, selected, evaluated, and synthesized. The method section should reflect the actual research process rather than a generic description of a methodology.

4.6 Results and Discussion

This section should present and critically analyze the findings, arguments, or results of the research. Authors should connect their analysis to the research question, relevant literature, and appropriate theoretical or legal frameworks.

The discussion should go beyond description or repetition of source materials. It should explain the significance of the findings, address competing interpretations where relevant, and demonstrate how the manuscript contributes to scholarly understanding.

The organization of this section may be adapted to the type of manuscript, provided that the analysis remains coherent and sufficiently substantiated.

4.7 Conclusion

The conclusion should directly answer the research question or objective and summarize the principal findings and contribution of the manuscript. It should not simply repeat the abstract or reproduce the discussion.

Recommendations, implications, and suggestions for further research may be included when supported by the analysis. The conclusion must not introduce substantial new evidence or claims that have not been discussed in the manuscript.

4.8 References

All sources cited in the text or notes must be included in the reference information as required by the journal’s citation system. Authors must ensure that bibliographic details are accurate and that every citation corresponds to a genuine, identifiable source.

The journal’s current requirements are:

• At least 30 references per article.

• At least 80% of the references should consist of primary sources in the form of scientific journal articles published within the preceding ten years, as specified in the journal’s existing guidelines.

• Relevant legislation, judicial decisions, primary legal materials, authoritative books, classical Islamic legal works, and other essential sources may be included when appropriate to the research question. These should not be used to circumvent the journal’s stated reference requirements.

• The citation and note format must follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, using the full-note system.

• Authors are encouraged to use reference management software such as Mendeley or Zotero.

The reference requirements should be applied in a manner appropriate to the manuscript while preserving the journal’s published minimum and source-proportion rules. Authors must not include fabricated references, cite sources they have not adequately checked, or add irrelevant citations merely to increase citation counts.

5. Citation and Referencing Style

IJTIHAD follows the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, full-note system. Sources should be cited in footnotes, with full bibliographic details provided at the first citation and appropriate shortened notes used subsequently in accordance with Chicago style.

Authors must provide citations for direct quotations, paraphrased arguments, data, legal interpretations, and ideas derived from other sources. Quotations must be accurate, and omissions or additions must be clearly indicated according to accepted scholarly practice.

For legal research, authors should provide sufficient information to identify legislation, judicial decisions, fatwas, and other legal materials. For classical Islamic sources, authors should identify the work and edition or other bibliographic details sufficiently to enable verification.

Mendeley and Zotero may be used to organize references, but authors remain responsible for checking the accuracy and consistency of the resulting citations.

6. Authorship and Author Contributions

Authorship must reflect genuine and substantial scholarly contributions to the research and manuscript. All listed authors must have made an appropriate contribution, approved the final manuscript, and agreed to its submission to IJTIHAD.

Individuals who do not meet the journal’s authorship criteria should not be included as authors merely because of seniority, position, funding, supervision, or institutional affiliation. Relevant contributions that do not qualify for authorship may be acknowledged appropriately, with permission where necessary.

The corresponding author is responsible for coordinating communication with the editorial office and ensuring that all co-authors are informed of the submission, revisions, and editorial decisions.

Changes to the author list after submission must be explained to the editor and approved by all affected authors. The journal may pause editorial processing while a genuine authorship dispute is being resolved.

7. Originality, Prior Publication, and Concurrent Submission

A manuscript submitted to IJTIHAD must be original and must not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal. Authors must disclose relevant prior dissemination or publication where it may affect the assessment of originality, including substantial overlap with previously published work.

The journal does not accept duplicate or redundant publication that presents substantially overlapping material as new scholarly work without appropriate disclosure and justification. Where a manuscript develops from a thesis, conference paper, preprint, or other earlier output, authors must ensure that the submission complies with the journal’s originality requirements and applicable policies, and disclose the earlier version when relevant.

Authors must not submit a rejected manuscript for renewed consideration contrary to the journal’s stated policy. Under the existing Publication Ethics policy, rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.

8. Research Ethics, Funding, and Competing Interests

Authors must comply with applicable ethical requirements when conducting and reporting research. Where relevant, manuscripts should state the ethical approval, consent, permissions, or safeguards required by the research design and applicable rules.

All sources of research funding and material support must be disclosed where relevant. Authors must also declare financial and non-financial competing interests in accordance with the journal’s Publication Ethics and Conflict of Interest Policy.

If no competing interests exist, authors may use the following statement:

“The authors declare no competing interests.”

Where relevant, authors should explain the role of a funder or supporting organization in the research design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, writing, or decision to submit the manuscript.

9. Plagiarism and Research Integrity

Authors must ensure that the manuscript properly acknowledges all sources and does not misappropriate another person’s words, ideas, data, or scholarly contribution.

All submissions may be screened or assessed for originality in accordance with the journal’s Plagiarism Policy. A similarity score is an indicator for assessment and does not, by itself, establish plagiarism; editorial judgment must consider the nature and context of the matched material.

Concerns involving fabrication, falsification, authorship manipulation, citation manipulation, or other forms of research misconduct will be handled under the journal’s Allegations of Research Misconduct policy and other relevant policies.

Authors must cooperate reasonably with editorial inquiries and provide clarification or supporting information when requested.

10. Use of Artificial Intelligence

Authors must follow the journal’s separate AI Policy. AI tools must not be used in ways that misrepresent authorship, fabricate evidence or references, conceal the origin of scholarly content, or compromise the integrity of the research.

Any use of AI must be disclosed where required by the journal’s AI Policy. AI tools cannot be listed as authors and cannot assume responsibility for the accuracy, originality, or integrity of the manuscript.

Authors remain fully responsible for the manuscript’s content, references, data, arguments, and conclusions. The more specific requirements and restrictions in the AI Policy take precedence over any general statement in these guidelines concerning the use of writing or research tools.

11. Tables, Figures, and Supplementary Materials

Tables, figures, images, and supplementary materials must be relevant to the manuscript and accurately represent the underlying information. Each item should be clearly labeled and referred to in the text where appropriate.

Authors must obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material when required and provide appropriate attribution. Images or other materials must not be manipulated in a misleading manner.

Supplementary files may be submitted through OJS where they support the research or help document the methods, data, or analysis. Authors should ensure that supplementary materials do not disclose confidential information or personal data without an appropriate legal or ethical basis.

12. Submission Procedure

Manuscripts must be submitted through the official IJTIHAD OJS platform. Authors should:

1. Register or log in to the journal’s online submission system.

2. Select New Submission and choose the appropriate journal section available in OJS.

3. Complete the submission checklist and confirm compliance with the journal’s requirements.

4. Upload the manuscript in Microsoft Word format.

5. Enter accurate manuscript metadata, including the title, abstract, keywords, author names, affiliations, and other required information.

6. Upload supplementary files or declarations when applicable.

7. Review the submission information and complete the final confirmation.

Authors should ensure that the manuscript file and metadata are consistent and that the manuscript complies with the journal’s requirements before completing submission.

For assistance with the submission process, authors may contact the editorial office at ijtihad@unida.gontor.ac.id or use the contact information provided on the journal’s official website.

13. Editorial Screening and Peer Review

All submissions are subject to initial editorial screening to assess their relevance, completeness, originality, scholarly quality, and compliance with the journal’s requirements.

Manuscripts that pass the initial screening may proceed to the journal’s double-blind peer-review process, in which reviewer and author identities are concealed from one another in accordance with the journal’s Peer Review Process policy.

Possible editorial decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection. A request for revision does not guarantee acceptance, and the editor retains responsibility for the final decision.

The journal may decline a manuscript before peer review if it falls outside the scope, does not meet essential submission requirements, or raises material concerns that prevent further consideration under the journal’s policies.

14. Corrections, Retractions, and Post-Publication Responsibilities

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their published work. If an author discovers a material error in a submitted or published manuscript, the author must notify the editorial office promptly and cooperate in determining the appropriate response.

Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and retractions are governed by the journal’s separate Correction and Retraction Policy. Scholarly comments, critiques, and author responses concerning published articles are handled under the Post-Publication Discussion Policy.

These procedures are intended to preserve the reliability of the scholarly record and should not be interpreted as automatic sanctions for every error or disagreement.

15. Final Compliance

By submitting a manuscript to IJTIHAD, authors confirm that they have read and agree to comply with the journal’s Author Guidelines and relevant publication policies.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that the manuscript meets the journal’s academic, ethical, and formatting requirements. The editorial team may request clarification, additional documentation, or revisions when necessary to assess compliance.

The journal periodically reviews these guidelines to maintain consistency with its scope, editorial procedures, and recognized standards of scholarly publishing.