Focus and Scope

AKSEN Journal of Islam and Humanities (AJIH) Published by AKSEN (Akademika Semesta Nusantara)

Overview

AKSEN Journal of Islam and Humanities (AJIH) is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal dedicated to advancing critical, interdisciplinary, and historically grounded inquiry into Islam as a religious tradition and Muslim societies as lived, dynamic communities. The journal provides a scholarly forum that bridges classical Islamic scholarship with contemporary humanities and social science approaches, encouraging dialogue across disciplinary, regional, and methodological boundaries.

AJIH welcomes submissions that engage Islam and Muslim life from textual, historical, social, cultural, philosophical, and comparative perspectives. The journal is particularly interested in scholarship that takes seriously both the internal intellectual traditions of Islam and the external, contextual realities of Muslim societies—past and present, in Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority settings alike.

Thematic Scope

The journal welcomes original research, critical essays, and review articles within, but not limited to, the following areas:

1. Islamic Studies (Textual and Intellectual Traditions)

  • Qur'anic studies and tafsir (exegesis)
  • Hadith studies and its methodologies
  • Islamic law (fiqh) and legal theory (usul al-fiqh)
  • Islamic theology (kalam) and philosophy (falsafah)
  • Sufism and Islamic spirituality
  • Islamic intellectual history and the history of Islamic thought

2. Muslim Societies (Social and Cultural Dimensions)

  • Sociology and anthropology of Muslim communities
  • Islam and politics, governance, and the state
  • Islam, law, and society (including legal pluralism)
  • Gender, family, and Muslim social life
  • Islamic education and pedagogy
  • Muslim minorities and diaspora studies
  • Islam and popular culture, media, and public discourse

3. Islam in Comparative and Global Contexts

  • Southeast Asian Islam, with particular attention to Indonesia and the Malay-Nusantara world
  • Comparative studies of Islam across regions (South Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Americas)
  • Interfaith relations and comparative religious studies
  • Islam and modernity, secularism, and globalization
  • Muslim responses to contemporary global challenges (technology, environment, human rights, pluralism)

4. Methodological and Theoretical Contributions

  • New methodological approaches to the study of Islam and Muslim societies
  • Critical and reflexive approaches to Islamic Studies as a field
  • Historiography of Islamic and Muslim studies scholarship

Disciplinary Approach

AJIH is explicitly interdisciplinary. It draws on and welcomes contributions employing methods and perspectives from religious studies, history, sociology, anthropology, political science, law, gender studies, philosophy, and cultural studies, provided the work engages substantively with Islam or Muslim societies. The journal does not privilege any single methodological school and encourages both textual/philological scholarship and empirical/field-based research.

What Falls Outside the Scope

To maintain focus and quality, AJIH generally does not publish:

  • Purely devotional, polemical, or sectarian writing lacking scholarly and critical engagement
  • Studies unrelated to Islam or Muslim societies, even if situated in Muslim-majority regions
  • Purely journalistic or opinion pieces without scholarly grounding or engagement with existing literature

A Note on Regional Identity and Global Reach

While AJIH is rooted in the Indonesian and Southeast Asian scholarly context—reflected in its publisher's name, Akademika Semesta Nusantara—the journal aims to serve as a global platform. It welcomes contributions from scholars worldwide and seeks to position Southeast Asian and Nusantara-based scholarship in conversation with wider global debates in Islamic Studies and the humanities.