Editorial & Reviewer Guidelines

• ◆Treat all submissions fairly, confidentially and without bias.
• ◆Select qualified reviewers and avoid those with conflicts of interest.
• ◆Not use unpublished material from a submission in their own research.
• ◆Withdraw from any manuscript in which they have a conflict of interest, delegating it to another editor.
• ◆Ensure that reviews are completed in a reasonable time and that decisions are clearly explained.
• ◆Check reviewer reports for quality, relevance and signs of undisclosed or inappropriate AI use before relying on them.
• ◆Not request or suggest that authors cite the editor's own work, or articles from a particular journal, in order to influence a decision, and remove any such request from a reviewer report.
• ◆Follow the rules on editors' own submissions in Section 6 and the rules on AI use in Section 8.

• ◆Keep manuscripts and review content strictly confidential.
• ◆Provide objective, constructive and timely feedback, with reasons for their recommendations.
• ◆Declare any conflict of interest and decline the review where one exists.
• ◆Alert the editor to suspected plagiarism, data fabrication or other misconduct.
• ◆Not use unpublished information from a manuscript for their own benefit.
• ◆Write the review personally, and not delegate it or pass the manuscript to another person or tool.
• ◆Not recommend citations to their own work, their collaborators' work or a particular journal unless they are scientifically necessary, and explain why they are needed.
• ◆Follow the rules on AI use in peer review in Section 7.

• ◆Editor-in-Chief and handling editors: may not publish as authors or co-authors in Al-Amīn during their term of office. They are encouraged to publish their work in other journals.
• ◆Reviewers: may submit manuscripts, but these are handled entirely independently, by an editor with no relationship to the author. The author has no access to the manuscript's records or to reviewer identities in the system.
• ◆Same standards: such submissions undergo the same peer review as all others, and acceptance is never guaranteed or expedited because of the author's role.

• ◆Confidentiality: reviewers must not upload a manuscript, or any part of it, to a generative AI tool, because this may breach the authors' confidentiality and proprietary rights.
• ◆Original assessment: the scientific evaluation, judgment and recommendation must be the reviewer's own. Reviewers may not use AI to generate or draft the content of their review report.
• ◆Limited language help: a reviewer may use an AI tool only to improve the language of their own comments, and only if no part of the manuscript or its confidential content is entered into the tool. Reviewers remain responsible for the final content.
• ◆Disclosure: reviewers must tell the editor of any use of AI tools in preparing a report.
• ◆AI authorship: AI tools cannot be credited as reviewers, and the reviewer remains fully accountable for the report.
• ◆Consequences: reports found to be AI-generated, generic or unrelated to the manuscript will be discarded. The reviewer may be removed from the reviewer pool, and the breach of confidentiality may be reported to their institution.

• ◆Confidential manuscripts, reviewer reports and decision letters must not be uploaded to public generative AI tools.
• ◆Editorial decisions must be made by people. AI tools may not be used to decide on acceptance or rejection, or to write a decision letter without human review.
• ◆Any AI-based tool used by the journal for screening, such as similarity, language or integrity checks, supports human judgment and does not replace it.

• ◆refers to the specific content, methods, data and results of the manuscript, and not only to general points that could apply to any paper;
• ◆contains no invented, inaccurate or misleading statements, and no references that cannot be verified;
• ◆is consistent with the reviewer's recommendation, and with its tone and level of detail;
• ◆does not ask authors to cite the reviewer's own work or work from a particular journal without scientific justification;
• ◆shows no sign that the manuscript was shared with an AI tool or other third party.

If a report is suspected of being AI-generated or of breaching confidentiality, the editor asks the reviewer for an explanation. AI-detection software may be used only as supporting information, and not as the sole basis for a conclusion. Reports that do not meet these standards are set aside, and another reviewer is invited. The outcome is recorded in the editorial file.

AI technology and publication ethics standards change quickly. These guidelines are reviewed regularly and updated as needed, in line with COPE recommendations and good practice in scholarly publishing.