Evaluation Principles
• The Journal of the History of Religions accepts for evaluation articles and scientific researches that have not been published before or are not currently under evaluation in another journal for publication and approved by each author.
• Manuscripts submitted to the journal that pass the preliminary check are reported for similarity using software programs such as Turnitin and Ithenticate.
• The Journal of the History of Religions conducts a double blind review process. All manuscripts will first be evaluated by the editor for suitability to the journal. The eligible articles are sent to at least two independent referees who are experts in the field to evaluate the scientific quality of the article.
• The editor evaluates the articles independently of the ethnicity, gender, nationality, religious beliefs and political philosophy of the authors. He/she ensures that articles submitted for publication undergo a fair double blind peer review.
• The editor does not allow any conflict of interest to arise between authors, editors and referees.
• The editor is responsible for the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of manuscripts. The editor's decision is final.
• Editors do not take part in the evaluation process of articles written by themselves or their family members, colleagues, etc. and submitted to the journal. For this reason, the duties of the editors are suspended until the process is completed and the relevant issue is published.
• Reviewers must ensure that the entire process regarding the submitted articles remains confidential until the article is published. Referees who identify any copyright infringement or plagiarism on the part of the author should immediately report the situation to the editor.
• If the referee is of the opinion that the subject of the article is outside his/her area of expertise or if it is not possible to provide a timely response, he/she should inform the editor of this situation and ask him/her not to include him/her in the review process.
• During the review process, the editor should make it clear that the manuscripts and scientific papers sent to the referees are the private property of the authors and that this is a privileged communication. For this reason, referees and editorial board members cannot discuss articles with other people. Care should be taken to keep the identity of the referees confidential.

Evaluation Process
Internal Referee Process: Incoming articles are first subjected to the internal refereeing process by the journal boards. In this process, articles deemed suitable for the journal continue their evaluation process.
Refereeing Type:
Double-Blinding: After the similarity/plagiarism check, eligible articles are refereed by the editor-in-chief for originality, methodology, importance of the topic covered and compatibility with the scope of the journal. The editor forwards the manuscript to the relevant field editor in the name of ensuring that the manuscript undergoes double blind review in a fair manner. The field editor submits the article or scientific study that meets the formal requirements to the evaluation of at least two referees from Turkey and/or abroad, and approves the publication of the manuscript after the changes deemed necessary by the referees are made by the authors.
Review Time: Pre-Publication
Author-Referee Interactions: Editors/Area Editors mediate all interactions between reviewers and authors.
Time in Review: 8-10 weeks on average. This period may be longer depending on the changes requested from the manuscript.
Plagiarism Check: Yes, articles are scanned through Turnitin, Ithenticate etc. programs to prevent plagiarism.
Number of Referees Reviewing Each Article: The article is reviewed by at least two referees within the framework of a double-blind system.
Allowed Duration: The refereeing process is 20 days. This period can be extended by adding 10 days. Editors are authorized to determine this period.
Decision: In order for the article to be accepted for publication by the Editor/Area Editor, it must receive at least two acceptance decisions from two referees. If there is one rejection and one acceptance decision at the end of the evaluation and revision processes, the relevant editor/field editor forwards the article to a third referee.
Suspected Ethical Violation: Reviewers should inform the Editor if they suspect misconduct in the research or publication. The Editor is responsible for taking necessary action in accordance with COPE recommendations.

Editor Process:
• The editor conducts a preliminary review of the research article within 1 week of submission and sends it to the field editor for a more detailed review. For research articles, the field editor usually reads each article thoroughly. For all manuscripts, the aim is to reach a preliminary decision within two to three weeks, but usually a preliminary decision can be made within a few days of submission.
• If the content of the manuscript falls outside the editorial policy of the Journal of the History of Religions, the authors will be notified to submit their work to another journal without delay. The usual reasons for rejection at this stage are insufficient originality and the topic being outside the scope of the journal.
• If the manuscript is suitable for the Journal of the History of Religions, the field editor sends the manuscript to two external referees. The referees report their criticisms and recommendations to the editors, who make the final decision. The referees are asked to confirm their reports and declare any conflicts of interest on the manuscript sent to them. The final decision is made by the Editor/Area editor after the external peer review process.
• In cases where serious research misconduct is suspected, the relevant study is sent to the ethics editor of the Journal of the History of Religions and the study is reviewed by third parties deemed appropriate by the ethics editor and the necessary reports are made and forwarded to the editor.
• For all articles, it is aimed to reach a final decision on publication within 8 to 10 weeks after submission. In the case of a publication proposal subject to revision, authors are usually asked to renew their manuscripts and upload them to the system within the following month. In case of revisions beyond the publication date, the article will be transferred to the next issue.
• As part of its commitment to readers and authors, the Journal of the History of Religions provides open access to articles. All our articles are freely available online.
• If an error is detected in a published article, it is the discretion of the editor or deputy editor who manages the process to determine whether or not a correction will be made. This can be communicated by the author and the reader to the relevant editor via e-mail.
Principles of the Referee Process for the Work of the Editorial Staff
• Editorial articles written by the editors of the Journal of the History of Religions do not undergo external peer review. Original research articles are sent to at least two external reviewers as part of a double-blind review process. During this period, the roles of those editors are suspended.

Responsibilities of Authors
• The author should comply with research and publication ethics.
• The author should not attempt to publish the same study in more than one journal and should not submit the study to more than one journal at the same time.
• The author should indicate the works used in the writing of the article in the bibliography.

Responsibilities of the Editor
• The Editor evaluates manuscripts for scientific content without regard to the ethnicity, gender, citizenship, religious beliefs or political opinions of the authors.
• The Editor conducts fair double-blind peer review of manuscripts submitted for publication and ensures that all information about submitted manuscripts is kept confidential before publication.
• The editor informs the reviewers that the manuscripts are confidential and that this is a privileged interaction. Reviewers and the editorial board cannot discuss manuscripts with other people. The anonymity of reviewers must be ensured. In certain cases, the editor may share a reviewer's review with other reviewers to clarify a particular point.
• The editor is responsible for the content and overall quality of the publication. It is also his/her responsibility to issue a correction note or retraction when necessary.
• The editor does not allow any conflict of interest between authors, editors and reviewers.

Responsibilities of Referees
• By accepting the manuscript, the referees are deemed to have accepted that there is no conflict of interest with the research, the authors and/or the institutions and individuals who contributed to the realization of the research.
• Reviewers should make their evaluations according to objective criteria.
• The language and style used by the referees in the evaluation should not offend the author.
• Reviewers must ensure that all information regarding the submitted manuscripts remains confidential until the manuscript is published.
• Reviewers should notify the editor if they notice copyright infringement or plagiarism in the work they review.
• A reviewer who feels inadequate to review a manuscript or who feels that he/she cannot complete the review in the allotted time should withdraw from the review process.
• During the review process, reviewers are expected to prioritize the following considerations and then move on to article-specific evaluations: Does the article contain new and important information? / Does the abstract clearly and properly describe the content of the article? / Is the methodology described in a coherent and understandable way? / Are the interpretations and conclusions substantiated by the findings? / Are there sufficient references to other studies in the field? / Is the language quality adequate?

Preliminary Review, Spell Check and Plagiarism Check
• The manuscript is reviewed by the Editor for compliance with the journal's publication principles and academic writing. The pre-review period is maximum 15 days. Manuscripts deemed appropriate are forwarded to the Manuscript Editor to be checked for plagiarism, language rules and compliance with the ISNAD System (https://www.isnadsistemi.org/guide/isnad2/). Articles are scanned for plagiarism using programs such as Turnitin, iThenticate, etc. Spell check and plagiarism scanning are completed within a maximum of 15 days. The plagiarism similarity rate must be less than 25%. If the similarity rate appears to be 1%, but citation and quotation are not done properly, plagiarism may still be in question. In this respect, citation and quotation rules must be known and carefully applied by the author:

Citation/Indirect Quotation:
• If a citation is made to an opinion, discussion or determination in a source and the cited opinion is put on the line in the words of the researcher, a footnote sign (1) should be placed at the end of the sentence. If the citation is to a specific page or page range of the work, the page number should be given. If there is a reference to the entire work, in other words, if there is a reference to a dimension that requires the reader to examine the entire work, the source should be indicated in the footnote after the phrase “bk. on this subject”, “bk. about this opinion”, “bk. about this discussion” or just “bk.”.

Quotation/Iquotation:
• If the relevant part of the source is quoted verbatim, without touching the point and comma, the quoted part is “enclosed in double quotation marks” and the source is indicated by giving the footnote number (1) at the end. Quotations that exist in the directly quoted text are written using 'single quotation marks'. If the directly quoted part is longer than three lines (more than forty words), it is shown in a separate paragraph. In order to distinguish long quotations from the main text, it should be preferred to write in a font size one smaller than the normal text size and to indent the entire paragraph from the left at the beginning of the line. In direct quotations, some words, sentences and paragraphs may be omitted, provided that they do not change the meaning. Ellipses (...) are placed in place of the omitted parts. It is not correct to write the part quoted verbatim from a source without enclosing it in “double quotation marks” and to be contented with just writing the source at the end. If these rules are not followed, the author may be accused of violation of publication ethics (Plagiarism) (see www.isnadsistemi.org).

Field Editor Review
• The manuscript, which passes through the Preliminary Review, Plagiarism Check and Spell Check stages, is examined by the relevant field editor in terms of problematic and academic language and style and sent to the appropriate referees.

Referee Process (Academic Evaluation)
• After being reviewed by the field editor, the manuscript is submitted to at least two external referees who have a PhD thesis, book or article on the subject. The referee process is carried out in confidentiality within the framework of double blind refereeing. The referee is requested to state his/her opinion and opinion on the manuscript either on the text or justify it with an explanation on the online referee form. The author is given the right to object and defend his/her views if he/she disagrees with the referee's opinions. The field editor ensures mutual communication between the author and the referee while maintaining confidentiality. If both referee reports are positive and there is a request for corrections, the editor makes an acceptance decision after the author's corrections are approved by the referees. If one of the two referees has a negative opinion, the editor sends the manuscript to a third referee. Manuscripts can be published with the positive decision of at least two referees. The publication of book reviews is decided after the evaluation of at least one internal referee (relevant field editors and/or editorial board members).

Proofreading Phase
• If the referees request corrections to be made in the text they have reviewed, the relevant reports are sent to the author and he/she is asked to correct his/her work. The author makes the corrections in the Word program with the “Track Changes” feature turned on or indicates the changes in the text in red. Submits the revised text to the field editor.

Field Editor/Control
• The field editor checks whether the author has made the requested corrections to the text.

Referee Check
• The reviewer checks whether the author has made the requested corrections to the text.

English Language Check
• The manuscripts that pass the Turkish language check are reviewed by the English Language Editor and, if necessary, revisions are requested from the author. The English language editor's check process is completed within a maximum of one week.

Final Reading
• Manuscripts that pass language control are sent to the proofreader for text control before being sent to the layout.

Typesetting and Layout Phase
• The manuscripts that are decided to be published by the editor are typeset and edited, made ready for publication and sent to the author for review. This stage takes a maximum of 15 days.

Data Submission to National and International Indexes
• The data of the published issue is sent to the relevant indexes within 15 days.