e-ISSN: 2148-8134
p-ISSN: 2148-5631
Founded: 2014
Period: Biannually

About the Journal

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Aim

Mütefekkir is a scientific, academic and peer-reviewed journal published in both print and online versions by Aksaray University Faculty of Islamic Sciences twice a year as June and December. Mütefekkir aims to contribute the accumulation of knowledge in its field by publishing original academic works with scientific qualities at national and international level.

Scope

Mütefekkir, publishes scientific articles in all areas of religious studies (Arts and Humanities/Religion), Islamic researches in particular. In addition, the articles on Middle East Studies, Ottoman Studies, Values/Character Education and the like may also be published, as long as they are related to religious studies in some way.

Publisher e-mail: iif@aksaray.edu.tr

Publisher web address: Faculty of Islamic Sciences (aksaray.edu.tr)

Publisher

Mütefekkir is published by Aksaray University Faculty of Islamic Sciences. The editorial board and advisory board consist of recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal’s scope.

Publication Frequency

Mütefekkir is published twice a year in June and December. In a year, only one special issue can be published. The announcements related to special issue are to be made at least one year prior to publication. The topics to be covered in the special issue are determined by the Editorial Board according to contemporary discussions.

Publication Language

The publication language of Mütefekkir is Turkish. Articles written in English and Arabic may also be published. As for articles written in other languages, the editorial board decides on them. It is imperative that articles written in Arabic have a latinized bibliography. The editorial board may require language editing for the articles submitted to Mütefekkir.

Submission Policy

  • The articles submitted to the Mütefekkir for publication must be in accordance with the aim and scope of the Journal.
  • The articles submitted to Mütefekkir should be original and academic works prepared by using research methods suitable for their fields. In addition, translations, book reviews, criticisms and evaluations as contributions to the scientific field are accepted.
  • For the publication of translations, the receipt of permission from the institution which published the study previously has to be presented.
  • For the works of translation, text simplification, and transcription, photocopies of the original texts or PDF format should be added. In addition, for the book introductions and reviews, the book cover image should be added in graphic format. At most one study of an author (any type of work) can be published in an issue.
  • Articles may not exceed 9.000 words (25 pages), including appended material such as pictures, charts and maps etc.
  • Articles submitted to the Journal should be unpublished elsewhere or be unsent for publication. Articles published anywhere in any form or greatly extracted from any published materials are not taken into consideration.
  • For the articles presented in a scientific event and not being published yet, the name, place and date of the event should be included.

Review Process

  • Pre-Evaluation and Plagiarism Screening: The study is reviewed by the editor for compliance with the journal publication principles, academic writing rules and the ISNAD Citation Style and it is scanned about plagiarism by using custom software. This review is completed in maximum 10 days. Click for the preliminary consideration form of the journal.
  • Section Editor Review: The study which had been through Preliminary Examination and Plagiarism Screening is examined by the related section editor in terms of problematic and academic language-style. This review is completed in maximum 15 days.
  • Peer Review Process: The study, which is subjected to review by the section editor, is submitted to the evaluation of at least two referees who has doctoral thesis, book or article related to the subject of the paper. The reviewing process is carried out confidentially within the framework of Double-blind peer review (* Double-blind peer review: Reviewers are unaware of the identity of the authors, and authors are also unaware of the identity of reviewers). For this reason, the publications of the journal editors are not included in the journal. In case of an application from the section editors, their access to that number is restricted and they are not assigned a task in order not to harm the blind peer review system. Referee names are kept strictly confidential. Referee identities may only be disclosed to journal Editorial Board members, who are also instructed to maintain confidentiality). The referee is required to present his / her opinion about the reviewed study either on the text or to justify it with an explanation of at least 150 words on the online referee form. The author is given the right to defend his / her objections and opinions, if he / she does not agree the opinion of the referee. The field editor provides mutual communication between the author and the referee, while maintaining confidentiality. The arbitration process is completed within a maximum of 30 (20 + 10) days. If both of the referee reports are positive, the study is submitted to the Editorial Board with a proposal for evaluation of its publication. In case one of the two judges declares negative opinion, the study is sent to a third referee. The studies can be published at least two positive decisions. Translated articles are sent to language and related field experts to assess the appropriateness of the original, the proper use of space concepts and language. The translation which the experts’ stated negative opinions are not published. The publication of book and symposium reviews and dissertation abstracts is decided as a result of the evaluation of the related field editors.
    Click for the standard article referee evaluation form.
    Click for the translated article referee evaluation form.
    Click for book review evaluation form.
  • Correction Phase: In the case of referees requesting proofreading in the text that they are examining, relevant reports are sent to the author and they are asked to correct them. The correction is requested to be completed within 10 days. The author presents his corrections by specifying red color to the section editor.
  • Section Editor Control: The section editor checks whether the author makes the corrections that requested in the text. The inspection process is completed within a maximum of 5 days.
  • Language Editing: The works which are passed through the referees are examined by Language Editor and if necessary the author is asked for correction. The inspection process is completed within a maximum of 15 days. The works which are passed through the Turkish Language Control are examined by English Language Editor and if necessary the author is asked for correction. The inspection process is completed within a maximum of 15 days.
  • Editorial Board Review: The works which are passed through technical, academic and linguistic examination, final broadcast status is decided with review of Editorial Board. In case of objection from the members, the Board shall decide by majority vote. Unpublished manuscripts may not be returned.
  • Copyediting and Production: The works which decided to be published by the Editorial Board, are made ready for publication by making typesetting and layout of the works.
  • Assigning a DOI Number: The articles which are ready for publication are given a DOI number.
  • Archiving: The printed copies of the published issue shall be submitted to local and external reference libraries within 60 days at the latest; article metadata is transmitted to related Indexes within 15 days.

Writing Rules

  • Articles should be written via Microsoft Word and sent to the Editor (Translations alongside with original texts, including pictures, schemas and charts).
  • Under the title of the article, there should not be information about the name of the author, his/her institution, phone number and email address etc. Since the system administrator can already see the author of an article, the information about the author will be added to the article after the referee process. Thus, while adding an article to the system, the authors must be sure that there is no information about him/her. This is especially important for the referees who will examine the article to work independently.
  • Articles should not be longer than twenty-five (25) pages including the bibliography and appendix such as pictures, charts and maps. Texts should be written via Microsoft Office Word with ‘Cambria’ font style in 11 font size, single spaced, justified.
  • Margins should be; top 2.5, right 2.5, left 2 and bottom 2.5 cm. Paper sizes should be 16.5 cm width, 24 cm in height.
  • Paragraph spaces should be 3nk before and 0nk for after. Indents should be set to 0.75cm.
  • Footnotes should be in ‘Cambria’ font style, 8.5 in size, single spaced, justified and not spelled.
  • All of the Arabic texts should be written with ‘Traditional Arabic’ font, main texts should be 12 in size, footnotes should be 10 in size.
  • Articles in Turkish language must include 150 to 200 words of abstract and its English translation. Articles in English language must include both English and Turkish abstracts.
  • Original title of a translated article and its bibliographic information should be stated with a footnote attached to the main title.
  • Spelling book of the Turkish Language Council should be the main reference for spelling and punctuation unless there are special situations of the article. Editor has got the right to do minor changes in terms of spelling.
  • Author should be consistent in using diacritical letters and words with transcripts.
  • There should be a bibliography at the end of the article.

Notes and Bibliography 

Mütefekkir requires writers to use The ISNAD Citation Style. Further information can be found in its web page https://www.isnadsistemi.org.

Similarity Check Policy

All articles submitted Mütefekkir are checked by means of softwares in order to confirm they are not published before and avoid plagiarism.

Article Processing Charges

Mütefekkir as an open access journal does not charge any fees for article submission or article processing and printing. No copyright fee is paid to the author for the published articles.

Copyright Policy

The authors whose manuscripts are published in Mütefekkir are considered to have accepted that the copyright belongs to Mütefekkir. Scientific, legal and linguistic responsibilities of the published articles belong to the author.The content of Mütefekkir is licensed with Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Nonderivative 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND). Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Nonderivative 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND) permits third parties to share, copy and reproduce the work in any size and format, provided that it is for noncommercial use and with reference.

Open Access Policy

Mütefekkir provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Mütefekkir’s content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND). Mütefekkir recommends that libraries include the article contents into library catalogue records.

Archiving

All the data and full texts of the articles published in Mütefekkir are stored and published on servers of Aksaray University and various indexes and databases. The printed copies of the published issue shall be submitted to local and external reference libraries; article metadata is transmitted to related Indexes.

Sponsorship and Advertising

As part of its publication policies, Mütefekkir does not accept sponsorship or advertisements. However, the journal can make announcements on its web page about non-profit scientific events.

Privacy Statement

Personal information like names and e-mail addresses submitted to the Mütefekkir website will be used exclusively for this journal’s scientific aims. Such information will not be used for other purposes and will not be shared with third parties.

Ethical Policies

The following ethical duties and responsibilities are written in the light of the guide and policies made by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Ethical violation allegations should be sent to mutefekkirdergisi@gmail.com.

In case of submission of ethical violation allegations, required reviews are initiated by the journal management.

Authors

  • It is authors' responsibility tensure that the submitted article is of a quality that contributes tthe academic field.
  • The works must be original and based on research.
  • Although the plagiarism scan will be carried out by journal, authors are responsible for academic consequences of plagiarism.
  • The articles should not be sent tdifferent journals at the same time. Also, the articles must be unsent tthe other journals before.
  • It should be made sure that other individuals shown as co-authors, have contributed tthe research.
  • It is contrary tthe scientific ethics tadd some, whare not academic contributors tthe article, as co-authors or tput in order co-authors with nonacademic criteria such as title, age, and gender regardless of the order of contribution.
  • It is assumed that authors whsubmit articles tthe journal read and accept the publishing and writing principles of the journal and the writers are deemed thave committed themselves tthese principles.
  • The authors are obliged to withdraw or correct the erroneous article in case of detection.
  • Citations and bibliography should be complete and realistic.
  • Authors should take intaccount the Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive specified by the Higher Education Council.

Reviewers

  • Referees should act with the awareness that they are the most basic determinant of the academic quality of the article tbe published in the journal and should evaluate it with a view increasing the academic quality.
  • Referees should only accept the articles that they have the expertise necessary tmake an appropriate appraisal. Also, they should only accept the articles that they can adhere tthe double-blind peer-review secrecy and they should keep the details of the article in every way confidential.
  • Any information about the article examined in the review process should not be shared with anyone in any way.
  • Referees should only evaluate the correctness of the content of the articles and the appropriateness of the academic criteria. The opinions put forth in the article by authors may differ from those of the referees. The differences should not affect the evaluation.
  • Referee reports should be objective and moderate. Defamatory, derogatory and accusatory statements must be avoided.
  • Referees should avoid superficial and ambiguous expressions in evaluation reports. For the evaluations that resulted negative, the missing points and imperfections of the article must be shown clearly and concretely.
  • Referees must evaluate the articles within the time-frame granted tthem. If they will not evaluate the article, they must notify the journal within a reasonable time.

Editors

  • Editors should accept the articles that may contribute tthe relevant areas expressed in the scope of the Journal tthe evaluation process.
  • Editors should not be in any conflict of interest with the accepted or rejected articles nor take advantage from them.
  • Editors have all the responsibility and authority taccept or reject a submission.
  • It is the responsibility of editors tkeep the names of referees and authors confidential.
  • Editors should take the necessary effort tensure that the articles submitted for publication will be scanned tprevent plagiarism that is an academic dishonesty.
  • It is the responsibility of editors tcomplete the review, refereeing, editing and publishing processes of the submitted articles in a timely and healthy manner.
  • Editors should give priority to academic concerns and criteria when accepting the articles tthe journal.