Artificial Intelligence (AI) Usage Policy

Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Generative AI Policy

Sinergi International Journal of Islamic Studies supports responsible AI use while maintaining human accountability, research integrity, confidentiality, transparency, scholarly independence, and respectful treatment of religious and cultural contexts.

HUMAN ACCOUNTABILITY AI DISCLOSURE CONFIDENTIALITY
✓ AI may assist manuscript preparation. ✓ Meaningful AI use must be disclosed.
✓ Authors remain fully responsible for all content. ✕ AI tools cannot be authors or co-authors.
✕ Reviewers/editors must not upload confidential manuscripts or sensitive source material to AI. ✕ AI must not replace human scholarly or editorial judgment.
1. Use of AI by Authors

Authors may use generative AI or AI-assisted technologies to support activities such as language improvement, literature organization, idea development, transcription assistance, translation support, source organization, qualitative coding assistance, or manuscript preparation. AI tools must not replace the authors' critical thinking, scholarly judgment, religious-text interpretation, historical analysis, contextual understanding, or original contribution.

Authors are responsible for:

  • verifying factual accuracy and checking references generated by AI;
  • reviewing and substantially editing AI-assisted content;
  • checking for bias, hallucination, fabricated citations, invented quotations, or misleading historical and religious claims;
  • protecting confidential interview data, participant information, restricted archival materials, unpublished translations, manuscripts, copyrighted sources, and other sensitive materials;
  • independently verifying AI-assisted translations, transliterations, source identifications, summaries, historical claims, textual analysis, or interpretations; and
  • ensuring that the final manuscript represents the authors' own scholarly work.
Important: Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, respectful representation of religious traditions, and ethical compliance of all submitted content, regardless of whether AI tools were used.
2. AI Disclosure

Meaningful use of generative AI in manuscript preparation must be disclosed in a separate AI Declaration. The declaration should identify the tool used, its purpose, and the extent of human review and oversight.

Suggested AI Declaration
The authors used [tool/model name] for [specific purpose]. All AI-assisted outputs were critically reviewed, verified, and substantially revised by the authors. The authors take full responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, originality, and scholarly appropriateness of the manuscript.

Basic spelling, grammar, or punctuation checks do not normally require disclosure. If AI forms part of the research method, transcription, translation, transliteration, textual analysis, historical-source analysis, qualitative coding, content analysis, corpus analysis, or other analytical procedures, its use must be described in sufficient detail in the Methods section.

3. AI and Authorship

AI tools, chatbots, and language models must not be listed as authors or co-authors. Authorship requires human responsibility for the integrity of the work, approval of the final manuscript, accountability for its content, and the ability to respond to questions regarding sources, interpretations, translations, methods, and conclusions.

4. AI-Generated Images, Figures & Artwork

Generative AI must not be used to create, manipulate, obscure, remove, or introduce features in manuscript images, archival reproductions, photographs, manuscript facsimiles, inscriptions, historical documents, figures, or other visual evidence in a manner that misrepresents the underlying source or research evidence.

An exception may apply when AI-assisted imaging, document restoration, handwriting recognition, image analysis, manuscript classification, or synthetic-media analysis is part of the research design or methodology. In such cases, authors must describe the tool, model/version, procedure, inputs, validation process, and its role in generating or interpreting research evidence in the Methods section.

5. Use of AI by Reviewers

Submitted manuscripts are confidential documents. Reviewers must not upload manuscripts, manuscript excerpts, unpublished translations, participant information, restricted archival materials, source images, supporting files, or review reports into public generative AI systems.

Peer review is a human scholarly responsibility. AI tools must not be used to generate scholarly assessments, independently interpret religious texts, evaluate doctrinal or historical arguments, assess manuscript quality, or determine review recommendations. Reviewers remain personally responsible for the content, accuracy, fairness, scholarly sensitivity, and integrity of their reports.

6. Use of AI by Editors

Editors must not upload submitted manuscripts, confidential correspondence, reviewer reports, author responses, unpublished translations, restricted source materials, participant information, or editorial decision letters into public generative AI systems.

AI must not replace human editorial judgment or be used to determine acceptance, revision, or rejection. Editors remain fully responsible for editorial evaluation, reviewer selection, confidentiality management, scholarly sensitivity, conflict-of-interest management, communication, and final publication decisions.

7. AI in the Publication Workflow

The journal may use appropriately controlled AI-assisted technologies for limited technical and administrative purposes, with human oversight.

✓ Technical submission checks ✓ Duplicate-submission detection
✓ Research-integrity screening ✓ Reviewer matching support
✓ Copyediting and production assistance ✓ Identification of technical inconsistencies
Human oversight remains mandatory throughout all editorial and publication processes.

Violations & Consequences

Misuse or undisclosed use of AI may be handled under the journal's publication-ethics procedures. Examples include fabricated references, invented quotations, false historical claims, inaccurate or undisclosed AI-generated translations, fabricated source material, unauthorized processing of restricted archival content, misleading interpretation of religious texts, or inappropriate dependence on AI-generated scholarly analysis. Depending on severity, actions may include request for clarification, manuscript rejection, correction, retraction, institutional notification, or restrictions on future submissions.

Policy Governance

This policy follows principles of transparency, accountability, confidentiality, human oversight, fairness, intellectual-property protection, respectful scholarly discourse, source accuracy, cultural sensitivity, and research integrity. It will be reviewed periodically as AI technologies, Islamic-studies scholarship, humanities research practices, and international publication standards evolve.