Journal of Aqidah and Islamic Thought (AFKAR) is peer reviewed international journal committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics. Therefore, the prevention of publication malpractice is one of the important responsibilities of the editorial board. To that purpose, all the actors of AFKAR publication, authors, reviewers and members of the editorial team, are expected to fully adhere to our policy regarding publication ethics and malpractice, and respect the following statements:

EDITOR'S RESPONSIBILITIES 

1. Editors should evaluate manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit. An editor must not use unpublished information in the editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.
2. Editors must ensure that each manuscript received by the journal is reviewed for its intellectual content without regard to sex, gender, race, religion, citizenship, etc. of the authors.
3. Editors should ensure the integrity of the publication review process. As such, editors should not reveal either the identity of authors of manuscripts to the reviewers, or the identity of reviewers to authors.
4. Editors must ensure that all the information related to submitted manuscripts is kept as confidential before publishing.

EDITORIAL BOARD RESPONSIBILITIES 

1. The Editorial Board is responsible for deciding which of the submitted articles should be published.
2. The Editorial Board must ensure that information regarding manuscripts submitted by the authors is kept confidential.
3. The Editorial Board is accountable for everything published in the journal, thus he/she has complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article. However, the published manuscript would not represent the stand or opinion of the Editorial Board and the Management Team of AFKAR, or the Department of Aqidah and Islamic Thought, Academy of Islamic Studies, University of Malaya.
4. The Editorial Board should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper. They shall conduct proper and fair investigation into ethical complaints.

REVIEWER'S RESPONSIBILITIES 

1. Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
2. Reviewers must not have conflicts of interest with respect to the research, the authors or the research funding.
3. Judgments by the reviewers should be as objective as possible. There shall be no personal criticism of the author. They should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
4. In the event that a reviewer feels it is not possible for him/her to complete review of manuscript within stipulated time then this information must be communicated to the editor, so that the manuscript could be sent to another reviewer.

AUTHOR'S RESPONSIBILITIES 

1. The authors should ensure that their work is entirely original works, and if the work and/or words of others have been used, this has been appropriately acknowledged. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
2. They must ensure that the manuscript has not been issued elsewhere. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
3. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
4. If at any point of time, author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in submitted manuscript, then the error or inaccuracy must be reported to the editor. If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.

The ethics statements for our journal are based on the Ethical Code of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

TRANSFER OF COPYRIGHT 

AFKAR accepts manuscripts that have not been published elsewhere and are not under consideration for publication by other print or electronic media. The authors agree to transfer the copyright to AFKAR editorial office. However, it can be reprinted with a proper acknowledgement that it was published in AFKAR.