Journal of Duzce University Faculty of Theology

DUIFAD, which is a refereed academic journal, aims to contribute to the national and international knowledge accumulation in the field of theology by publishing translation articles in addition to original research articles with scientific qualifications at national and international level, book promotion and critics.

In our journal, scientific studies such as original research article in the field of theology (religious and Islamic studies) in Turkish, Arabic and English languages, translations, simplifications, critical editions, book and symposium reviews are published. The subfields are as follows:

Basic Islamic Sciences: Qur’anic Exegesis, Hadith, Kalam, Islamic Law, History of Islamic Sects, Sufism, Arabic Language and Literature.

Philosophy and Religious Sciences: Islamic Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Psychology of Religion, Sociology of Religion, Religious Education, History of Religions, History of Philosophy, Logic, Religious Culture and Moral Education.

Islamic History and Arts: History of Islam, History of Islamic Arts, Turkish-Islamic Literature and Religious Music.

Writing Rules

In order to spread the use of coomon language in the scientific publications produced in the field of theology, we have joined to the ISNAD Citation System since our June issue. Our authors who will send articles to our journal should submit their articles according to this system. Click for ISNAD Citation System 2nd Edition

Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

The publication process in the Journal of Divinity Faculty of Duzce University constitutes to the development and distribution of knowledge objectively and in a respected way. For this reason, the applied processes are reflected on the quality of the writers’ and the quality of institutions works which support the authors. Reviewed articles reify and promote the scientific method. At this point, it is of importance for all the stakeholders of the process (writers, readers and researchers, publisher, reviewer and the editors) to be in accordance with standards about ethic principles. Journal of Divinity Faculty of Düzce University expects all stakeholders to carry on the ethic responsibilities below within the context of publication ethics.

It is a building block for an article to be published in a refereed-journal which is necessary for the development of knowledge network that is agreeable and respected. This is the direct reflection of the quality of writers’ and their institutions’ studies. Reviewed articles reify and promote the scientific method. Therefore, it is important to reach an agreement about publication for all the stakeholders, the writer, journal’s editor, the reviewer and the publishing associations:

1. Autorship

The bibliography must be complete.

No place must be given for plagiarism and false data.

The same study must not be tried to be published in more than one journal, rules of the scientific research and publication ethics must be obeyed.

Actions against the scientific research and publication ethics are:

a) Plagiarism: Presenting others’ ideas, methods, data, practices, writing, forms or studies partly or wholly without referencing to the owners according to scientific rules,

b) Forgery: Producing data that is not based on research, editing or changing the presented or published study by basing it on fictitious data, reporting or publishing these, showing an unmade research as if it were made,

c) Distortion: Falsifying the obtained data and the research records, showing the methods, devices and materials that were not used in the study as if they had been used, not taking the data that are not inappropriate to the research hypothesis into consideration, juggling with data and/or results to make them be appropriate to the related theory and presuppositions, falsifying or manipulating the research results in accordance with the advantages of the people and the institutions that support the researcher,

d) Dissection: Dissecting the results of a study in a way that would destroy the integrity of the study and inappropriately, and using these in associate professorship exam evaluations by making a lot of publications of them without referencing each other and presenting these as separate studies in academic promotions,

e) Undeserved authorship: Including those who don’t have an active contribution in authors, not including those who have an active contribution in authors, changing the ranking of authors without a reason and inappropriately, excluding the names of those with active contribution from the study during publication or in next publications, making one’s name included – by exerting influence – in authors despite having no active contribution,

f) Other types of violation of ethics: Not stating openly the people, institutions and organizations and their contributions to the study in the publication of the researches that are made by the support of those, not following the ethic rules in studies done on humans or animals, not respecting the rights of patients in the publications, reviewer’s sharing the knowledge in a study, which is to be reviewed, with others before it is published, using the sources, places, opportunities and devices, which are provided or kept for scientific researches, out of their purposes, accusing someone of violation of ethics in a baseless, injudicious and malicious way (YOK Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Guideline, Article 8)

2. Author’s Responsibilities

All authors should considerably contribute to the study.

The statement that all the data in the article is real and authentic is necessary.

All the authors should ensure withdrawal and correction of mistakes

Article written in the Arabic language will normally have an Arabic bibliography. It is also necessary to create a second bibliography by Latinizing this Arabic bibliography.

3. Reviewers’ Responsibilities

1- When the requirements that are asked in the reviewer assessment form sent by the editors are fulfilled, the charge for the article assessment will be paid.

2- There are two main principles in the assessment form that reviewers should follow in the assessment form.

a) In case the reviewer answers the required clauses in the report positively or negatively, s/he must present both of them with justifications.

b) The reviewer must certainly put forward “alternative suggestions” when s/he asks for correction or answers negatively.

3- When the file is delivered the reviewer must urgently inform the editors that the file reached to him/her without any problems.

4- The reviewer must inform the editor at most in a week about whether s/he will assess the study by considering the appropriateness of the projected assessment time and the subject of the study.

5- For the assessment of a study the reviewers are given a time of 30 days. The reviewer cannot ask for additional time in order not for the authors to lose rights. The charge is not paid to a reviewer who did not send assessment reports within this time.

6- If the reviewer thinks that he cannot act fairly because of various reasons (author, institution, sponsor etc.), s/he should inform the editors that he will not assess the study at most in a week.

7- The reviewer assessments are expected to be objective and critical.

8- The authors are expected to make only a text-centered assessment, to avoid statements about the insufficiencies of the author/authors and not to use expressions that would destroy their reputations.

9- The reviewer is expected not to answer the assessment criterion only as yes or no, to give details about the negative opinions and to state the justifications.

10- Moreover, the editor does not send assessments to the reviewers in these cases so far as possible:

To the reviewers with whom the author/authors previously published collaborative work,

To the reviewers who helped the author/authors in their pre-readings,

To the reviewers with whom the author/authors are known to have problems previously.

To the reviewers who would benefit financially from the publication of the study,

To the reviewers who work in the same institution (the same department).

11- Some points of two reviewer reports might contradict with each other. In this case, the editor meets with the reviewers and finds a solution.

4. Editorial Responsibilities

Editors have all the responsibility and authority to accept or decline an article.

Editors should not be in a conflict of interest about the articles they accepted or declined.

Only the articles that would contribute in the field should be accepted.

Editors should side a publication for correction or withdrawal when mistakes are found.

Editors must keep the names of the reviewers hidden and must prevent plagiarism/false data.

The review process is located in the centre of the success in scientific publication. It is a part of our promise to save and develop the review process. Journal of Divinity Faculty of Düzce University has to help scientific community in every case that is about the scientific publication ethics, especially when there are doubtful, repeated publications or in cases of plagiarism.

Publishing Language

Publishing language of The Journal of Divinity Faculty of Duzce University is Turkish. Additionally, texts in Arabic and English can also be published.

The editorial board decides for the publication of works in other languages.

Turkish translations of Abstract, Keywords and Summary sections of articles written in English are also published.

Turkish and English translations of Abstract, Keywords and Summary sections of articles written in Arabic are also published.

Fiscal Policy

The Journal of Divinity Faculty of Duzce University is an open-access journal; no fee is charged for the access.

The authors are not paid any fees for their published works.

The editorial board and referees are not paid any fees.

All financial and legal copyright transactions of the translations are done by the translator.

No financial support is provided to the translator for copyright and any other charges.

The author is deemed to have accepted all financial, legal and scientific responsibility since the date of the translated text is submitted to the Journal of Divinity Faculty of Duzce University.

Publishing Principles

The Journal of Divinity Faculty of Duzce University publishes the texts that was not previously published elsewhere.

Texts that are in the evaluation process for another journal are returned to the author.

The Journal of Divinity Faculty of Duzce University publishes texts related with the field of divinity. The interdisciplinary texts related to the field of divinity can also be taken into the evaluation process by taking their contributions to the field into account.

No more than one (1) study of an author can be published in the same issue regardless of the text type.

Up to two (2) studies can be published in the same volume, provided that the publication type is different.

Those who are in the editorial board of the journal can send text to the journal, but they cannot work in the journal at the time the text is evaluated.

Writing Check: The texts are examined in terms of shape, writing rules and compliance with the ISNAD Citation System 2nd edition. Authors should make the corrections within 11 days.

Plagiarism/Similarity Check: Texts are examined in terms of plagiarism/similarity rate. Plagiarism/similarity rate determined by the Editorial Board is 20%. Articles exceeding this rate are rejected without being included in the referee process. Plagiarism/Similarity check is done twice, once after the Editorial Board evaluation, and before the Language Control process. The authors should make their corrections within 11 days for the first check, and within 4 days for the second check.

Language Check: For Turkish texts, Abstract and Summary sections, and for texts written in other languages, Abstract, Turkish Summary and Summary sections are grammatically checked. The corrections requested from the author should be done within 5 days.

Revision and Proofreading: In order to ensure the unity in linguistic expression and writing style, necessary corrections are made to the language and style of the text without interfering with the content and within the knowledge of the author. After this stage, no correction is requested from the author, but the text is sent to the author for the final reading.

Academic Evaluation

Editorial Board Evaluation:

Editorial Board evaluation has 2 stages. Taking the field of the text into account, each article is sent to two editorial board members by the editor.

Editorial Board evaluation is a double-sided blind evaluation process.

Members of the Editorial Board divide the texts into two as those that can be taken into the evaluation process and to be rejected.

Editorial Board members score the articles in accordance with the Editorial Board Evaluation Criteria.

The editor refers the first 25 articles with the highest score to the evaluation process.

If one of the two editorial board rejects the article, the editor sends the article to a third editorial board member. In accordance with the decision of the third editorial board member, the article is either rejected or placed in the ranking.

For Book and Symposium Review evaluations, the editor assigns an editor from the field.

The main criteria for the editor's assignment is that the field editor is working in the field of evaluations.

In terms of meeting the objectivity, double-sided blind evaluation process is operated in the evaluation process.

Referee Evaluation:

The texts are subjected to academic evaluation by the referees determined by the editorial board. In the referee evaluation process, if the referee requests, the text is sent to the author twice for corrections. Authors should send the corrected texts within 8 days for each correction request. The author must fill in the Author Correction Form along with the corrected text.

When there are both positive and negative referee reports for the same article, the decision on the article is made by the Editorial Board, taking the content of the reports into account.

It is important that the authors do not exceed the dates given for corrections in order for the journal publishing process to function properly.

The texts of the authors who do not make corrections within the specified dates are removed from the evaluation process.

Referee Policy

In the Journal of Divinity Faculty Duzce University double-sided blind refereeing system is applied.

Confidentiality is essential in the referee reports; therefore, referee names are not mentioned in the journal.

Multiple articles can be sent to a number of referees.

Archive Policy

The journal is sent to the domestic and foreign libraries determined by the Editorial Board and to international index institutions within one month from the date of publication.

Copyright Policy

From the date of its submission to the Journal of Divinity Faculty Duzce University until the end of the evaluation process and if it is published from the publication date, the translation cannot be published completely or partially in any form of visual, auditory and printed media without the consent of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Divinity Faculty Duzce University; it can be quoted by referring to the Journal of Divinity Faculty Duzce University.

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism/similarity rate determined by the Editorial Board is 20%. Articles exceeding this rate are rejected without being included in the referee process.

During plagiarism check, the field editor uses the programs produced for plagiarism/similarity control and presents the results to the editor in a report.