Institutions of Islamic Law is founded upon the conviction that the future development of Islamic legal scholarship requires a stronger institutional perspective. While Islamic law has long been examined through doctrinal, jurisprudential, textual, and normative approaches, comparatively less scholarly attention has been devoted to the institutions through which legal norms are interpreted, administered, implemented, negotiated, contested, and transformed within contemporary societies.
The journal seeks to advance scholarly conversations that place institutions at the centre of Islamic legal inquiry. It views institutions not merely as organisational structures that apply legal norms, but as the principal arenas through which Islamic law is interpreted, governed, institutionalised, negotiated, and continuously reshaped across diverse legal, political, economic, and social contexts. Accordingly, the journal promotes a broader understanding of Islamic law as a dynamic institutional phenomenon rather than solely a body of legal doctrines.
Accordingly, the journal welcomes theoretically informed, methodologically rigorous, and interdisciplinary research that examines how Islamic legal institutions evolve, respond to social transformation, negotiate legal pluralism, and contribute to governance, justice, public policy, and sustainable development across diverse jurisdictions.
The editorial philosophy of the journal is guided by five fundamental commitments.
The journal promotes institutional analysis as a central lens for understanding Islamic law. Rather than focusing exclusively on legal doctrines or textual interpretation, it encourages research examining the formation, governance, legitimacy, accountability, performance, and transformation of institutions operating within Islamic legal systems.
The journal is committed to publishing original, theoretically grounded, and methodologically robust research that makes meaningful contributions to international scholarship. Manuscripts are evaluated solely on academic merit through a rigorous double-blind peer review process that ensures fairness, objectivity, and scholarly integrity.
Although many contributions may draw upon Muslim-majority societies or particular regional experiences, the journal prioritises research offering broader conceptual, comparative, and internationally relevant insights into Islamic legal institutions, governance, and contemporary legal developments.
Recognising that institutions operate within complex social, political, economic, and cultural environments, the journal welcomes contributions from law, political science, public administration, economics, sociology, anthropology, governance studies, religious studies, and other related disciplines that enrich the understanding of Islamic legal institutions from multiple analytical perspectives.
The journal upholds the highest standards of publication ethics, editorial independence, transparency, and academic integrity. Editorial decisions are made impartially, without discrimination based on nationality, institutional affiliation, religion, gender, ethnicity, or ideological orientation, and in accordance with internationally recognised principles of responsible scholarly publishing.
Through this editorial philosophy, Institutions of Islamic Law seeks to cultivate an international scholarly platform that advances institutional perspectives in Islamic legal studies and contributes to the development of contextually grounded, empirically informed, and internationally engaged scholarship on Islamic law and its institutions.
