A peer-reviewed, open access journal since 2015, Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists defines the medieval Middle East expansively to include all geographies with prominent Muslim political, religious, or social presences between the rough parameters of 500-1500 CE. We seek previously unpublished articles featuring original research and analysis, including those that push the boundaries of the medieval Middle East as defined above. We are open to scholarship from any discipline or interdisciplinary formation and are committed to balancing pieces addressing new or underrepresented areas of inquiry with those contributing to more well-established fields.
We publish research articles on a rolling basis, as they complete the review and production process, and we welcome submissions at any time. In addition, we publish short critical editions and translations, essays on pedagogy, conference reports, and book reviews. Full issues of al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā are released toward the end of each calendar year, usually in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association.
The open access publication of al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā is made possible by Middle East Medievalists (MEM), an international, non-profit association of scholars. To support the journal, please consider joining MEM or renewing your MEMbership today!
Peer Review Policy
All research articles in this journal have undergone rigorous peer review, based on initial screening by the journal editors and double-blind reviewing by anonymous referees. Authors are required to respond to reader reports on top of making revisions to their papers. A thorough round of copy editing follows the acceptance of the revised submission which, in turn, leads to another round of improvements. Pedagogical essays and conference reports are not subject to the journal’s peer review policy.
Book Reviews
The book review editors of UW seek to commission reviews of scholarly books about the medieval Middle East. They prioritize, in descending order, books written in the languages of the Middle East and North Africa; those written in non-Western European languages (Russian, Czech, Hungarian, Japanese, etc.); and those written in Western European languages.
In the case of English-language scholarship, the editors prioritize books on novel, topical, or otherwise particularly important subjects; books that MEMbers volunteer to review; books by emerging scholars and/or fresh/marginalized scholarly voices; books that are designed for teaching or for wider audiences; books that for some reason risk being overlooked; and books that are brought to our attention by MEMbers or presses. Book review editors of UW will not make a habit of commissioning reviews of monographs in English on well-studied topics by established scholars.
These are, however, general guidelines, not ironclad rules to be strictly observed.
As a matter of policy, in the case of strongly negative book reviews the editors will request a second opinion from a member of the journal’s board or an outside authority. The publication of negative reviews may be delayed as a result of this policy.
Open Access Policy
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. Since 2015, authors retain their copyright and agree to license their articles with a Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives" 4.0 License. You can read more about Creative Commons licenses at creativecommons.org.
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā is a no-fee journal. Authors are not charged for the publication of their articles.
Archiving Policy
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā is archived in Columbia University’s Academic Commons. Academic Commons is Columbia University’s institutional repository, offering long-term public access to research shared by the Columbia community. A program of the Columbia University Libraries, Academic Commons provides secure, replicated storage for files in multiple formats. Academic Commons assigns a DOI and accurate metadata to each work to enhance discoverability.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
History of the Journal
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā began in 1989 as a newsletter edited by Sam Gellens, who co-founded the Middle East Medievalists (MEM) along with Richard Bulliet. Fred Donner, as president of MEM (1992- 1994), then expanded the newsletter into a substantial bulletin, the first issue of which appeared in 1992 (4:1). He added, among other features, research articles and reviews of books in Arabic and other Middle Eastern languages. Finally, in 2014-2015, under the leadership of Antoine Borrut and Matthew Gordon, the bulletin was transformed into an online, open access, peer-reviewed journal, the first issue of which appeared in 2015 (23:1). The Archives page makes available the complete run of al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā going back to 1989.
Masthead
In 2020, MEM commissioned artist and calligrapher Joumana Medlej to design a new logo for the association, as well as to redesign the masthead for al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā. Joumana’s notes on this project can be found here.