Aims & Scope

IJMES focuses on the area encompassing the Middle East and adjacent geo-cultural regions from the seventh century to the present. This area includes North and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab, Turkic and Persianate worlds, the Mediterranean and Balkans, Central, South and Southeast Asia and areas to which peoples from these lands have migrated or settled. Essays on communities that have historical, political, cultural or religious ties to the Middle East and on transnational or trans-regional relations are encouraged. Particular attention will be paid to works dealing with anthropology, art and architecture, cultural studies, economics, gender and LGBQT studies, history, indigenous studies, law, literature, political science, religious studies, and sociology. IJMES does not accept technical or highly specialized material, nor does it publish in the areas of administration or training. 

IJMES editorial policy requires that articles be based on original research and the careful analysis of archival and other primary-source materials. IJMES evaluates manuscripts with the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere in any language and are not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

IJMES remains committed to combatting conscious or unconscious bias with regard to gender, sexual preference, class, ethnicity, religion, or nationality.  The journal also remains committed to expanding the scope of international multi-lingual research that strives to interpret the lived and living experiences of peoples of diverse backgrounds and orientations. 

The Editorial Office at the University of Arkansas maintains its website here.

Article Types Accepted

• Article*
• Book Review (solicited)
• Book Review Essay (solicited)*
• Foundational Text (solicited)
• Review Essay*
• Roundtable*

* These article types may be eligible for APC waivers or discounts under one of the agreements Cambridge University Press has made to support open access.

Article Length

Articles may not exceed 10,000 words or roughly thirty-five double-spaced pages in 12-point font (including main text, footnotes, tables, and figure captions).

Preparing your article for submission

Manuscripts should be compiled in the following order:

• Cover page, including:
  • Authors, including Corresponding Author designation, full contact details and affiliations, including city and country
  • Abstract (up to 150 words)
  • Keywords (3-5)
  • Competing Interests statement
• Main text
• Acknowledgements (optional)
• Financial Support
• Table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages)
• Figure caption(s) (as a list)

The entire manuscript—including footnotes, tables, and references— should be double-spaced and numbered consecutively. 

Book reviews must contain the publication and reviewer data above the main text, using this format:

John Doe, The Title of the Book, Series Title (Place of Publication: Publisher, Date of Publication). Pp. 364. $35.95 cloth, $16.95 paper.* ISBN.

Reviewed by Jane Doe, Department of Linguistics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR; email: jdoe@uark.edu.

Number of pages should include the preface—not Pp. xiv + 350 but Pp. 364. If the price is not clear on the review copy or accompanying material, use the price given on the publisher's website.

Style

The Journal conforms to the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition. Transliteration follows a modified Encyclopedia of Islam system, which is detailed here.

Footnotes

IJMES has moved from the use of endnotes to the use of footnotes. In general, IJMES follows the footnote citation guidelines laid out in The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition.

Multiple sources for a single sentence should be consolidated in a single note.

Whenever possible, cite print sources instead of electronic copies. Footnotes should be double-spaced. When citing multiple sources in a footnote, order them in accordance with their appearance in the paragraph. If the sources have no apparent order within the text, order them chronologically.

When prefacing additional references, use the phrase “See also.” When prefacing one or two examples of many, use the phrase “For instance, see”; “and” should always precede the final entry in such a list.

When citing a source published in a city with a common name, include the state or country after the city’s name (e.g. Cambridge, MA or Cambridge, UK). For state names, use the standard, two-letter code of the United States Postal Service.

For examples, please see the Chicago Manual of Style page.

When referencing specific pages of a text, do not use abbreviations (e.g. p., pp., ff., idem, para., esp.), with the exception of “ch” or “chs” to indicate a specific chapter or chapters.

Use “ibid.” to reference the same citation as in the previous footnote, but avoid it if there are several references in the previous footnote. Do not use “op. cit.” or “passim” in footnotes.  

Internet citations must include a full URL and should include an author, title, and publication date if these are available. If there is no publication date in the citation, an accessed date (any date on which the URL was valid) must be included in parenthesis. This rule applies even (indeed especially) to URLs that are no longer active.

Archival citations are the responsibility of the author but must be consistent across the endnotes for each archive cited. They should follow any style requirements specified by the archive itself and Chicago rules for all other style decisions. The first reference must include the full name of the archive, as well as the location if it is not obvious from the name. The full name may be followed by "(hereafter XXX)" and that abbreviation used in subsequent citations.

Foreign Words and Transliteration

Please see the IJMES Transliteration Guide for further information.

How to prepare your materials for blind peer review

Instructions for blinding your manuscript prior to peer review can be found here.

Artwork, Figures, and Other Graphics

Tables, figures, and images must be cited in the text, for example (see Table 1). They should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals, captioned, and tables should appear in an editable format at the end of the article (in the case of figures, they should be submitted as separate figure files). They should not be interspersed in the text. For detailed information on figure preparation, please see the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.

Reproduction of copyright material: Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. A copy of the paperwork granting permission should be provided to the Cambridge production editor. You may be asked to pay a permissions fee by the copyright holder; any permissions fees must be paid for by the author. For an example of a permissions request form please see the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.

Ethics and transparency policy requirements

Please review our ethics policies prior to submission.

Acknowledgements

Authors can use this section to acknowledge and thank colleagues, institutions, workshop organizers, family members, etc. that have helped with the research and/or writing process. It is important that any type of funding information or financial support to be listed under ‘Financial Support’ rather than Acknowledgements so that it can easily be tagged and captured separately.

Financial Support

Please supply all details required by any funding and grant-awarding bodies as a separate section of your manuscript, as follows:

For single agency grants: "This work was supported by the [Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx]."

For multiple agency grants: "This work was supported by the [Funding Agency 1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency 2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency 3] under Grant [number xxxx.]"

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement:

"This research received no specific grant funding form any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors."