Focus and Scope

AKSEN Journal of Contemporary Islamic Law (AJCIL)

Publisher: AKSEN (Akademika Semesta Nusantara) [Placeholder — ISSN: pending] | [Placeholder — DOI prefix: pending]

Aims and Scope

AKSEN Journal of Contemporary Islamic Law (AJCIL) is a peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to advancing rigorous scholarship on Islamic law (fiqh, shari'ah, and usul al-fiqh) as it engages with the legal, social, political, and technological realities of the contemporary world. The journal provides a scholarly platform for researchers, jurists, practitioners, and graduate students to examine how classical Islamic legal reasoning is interpreted, reconstructed, and applied within modern legal systems, both within Muslim-majority societies and in pluralistic, minority-Muslim contexts.

AJCIL aims to:

  1. Advance critical and methodologically rigorous scholarship on Islamic law, including doctrinal analysis, comparative law, socio-legal studies, and legal history.
  2. Bridge classical Islamic legal thought and contemporary governance, exploring how maqasid al-shari'ah (objectives of Islamic law), fiqh methodology, and juristic reasoning (ijtihad) respond to modern legal, economic, and ethical questions.
  3. Foster interdisciplinary dialogue between Islamic legal studies and fields such as constitutional law, human rights, gender studies, Islamic economics and finance, bioethics, environmental law, and digital/technology law.
  4. Center Southeast Asian and Nusantara legal scholarship within global conversations on Islamic law, while remaining open to comparative and cross-regional contributions from the broader Muslim world and diaspora communities.
  5. Promote sound research ethics and methodological transparency, encouraging empirically grounded, well-argued, and properly evidenced legal scholarship.

Scope

The journal welcomes original research articles, critical legal analyses, case studies, comparative law studies, and (occasionally) invited review essays within — but not limited to — the following thematic areas:

  • Islamic legal theory and methodology (usul al-fiqh, maqasid al-shari'ah, ijtihad, and juristic reasoning)
  • Islamic family law (marriage, divorce, inheritance, guardianship) and its codification in national legal systems
  • Islamic criminal law (jinayah) and its interaction with national penal codes
  • Islamic finance, banking, and economic law, including shari'ah governance and compliance
  • Constitutional and public law in Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority jurisdictions
  • Human rights, gender, and Islamic law, including debates on legal reform and ijtihad on gender-related issues
  • Islamic law and the state, legal pluralism, and the relationship between shari'ah and positive law
  • Comparative and transnational Islamic legal studies
  • Islamic bioethics and medical jurisprudence (e.g., end-of-life issues, biotechnology, reproductive ethics)
  • Islamic environmental law and ethics
  • Digital transformation and Islamic law, including fintech, data governance, and AI-related legal-ethical questions
  • Legal history and the historical development of Islamic jurisprudence
  • Islamic law in Southeast Asia and the Nusantara region, including its interaction with adat (customary law) and colonial legal legacies

Focus Statement

AJCIL distinguishes itself through a dual commitment: doctrinal depth in classical Islamic jurisprudence and contemporary relevance to pressing legal and social issues. The journal is particularly interested in scholarship that:

  • Engages seriously with primary Islamic legal sources (Qur'an, Hadith, classical fiqh texts) alongside contemporary legal materials (statutes, case law, regulations);
  • Offers comparative perspectives — across schools of Islamic law (madhahib), across jurisdictions, or between Islamic and secular/civil legal systems;
  • Reflects the lived legal realities of Muslim communities in Southeast Asia and the Nusantara archipelago, while remaining globally engaged and comparative in outlook;
  • Applies interdisciplinary methods (empirical legal studies, socio-legal analysis, policy analysis) without sacrificing jurisprudential rigor.

The journal does not publish purely devotional, polemical, or sectarian content. Submissions should be framed as academic legal scholarship, adhering to standards of critical inquiry, evidence, and argumentation expected in peer-reviewed legal and Islamic studies journals.