Submission guidelines

The Call for Papers for the 2025 IQSA Meeting in Los Angeles, hosted by Loyola Marymount University, is now open. The submission deadline is May 31, 2025.

Submissions are welcome as either individual papers, organized panels, or roundtable discussions. Please see the instructions for submission below.

Individual papers: Individual paper proposals should be no more than 400 words long and should include the title of the paper, the name and affiliation of the presenter, and a 100-150-word biography.

Panel papers: Each individual panelist should independently submit their paper. Papers belonging to panels should indicate the name of the panel in the appropriate field in addition to providing a 400-word abstract and title for the individual paper. Only panel organizers should additionally include a panel abstract in the submission. There is a dedicated field for submitting the panel abstract.

Roundtables: We will accept a limited number of proposals for lightning roundtable discussions. These are roundtables of up to seven participants, where two to three questions are given and each participant has no more than three minutes to address each question. Ample opportunity should be given for audience participation. Only roundtable organizers should submit an abstract which would include the rationale and the questions to be asked.

Please only submit one paper proposal (either individual or as a part of a panel); roundtable discussants may also give a paper.

Proposals for single and panel papers must include:

  • Author name and affiliation.

  • 100-150-word short bio (written in English).

  • Paper title.

  • 400-word paper abstract (written in English).

For your proposal to be accepted and to attend the conference you must be an active IQSA member. You can join IQSA here. If you are a graduate student, contingent faculty, or are from the global south and are unable to pay, please contact us (contactus@iqsaweb.org).

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Please adhere to the following guidelines when writing your proposal:

  • Be sure to situate your work in the field and refer to relevant debates and secondary literature

  • Articulate a clear argument

  • Be as precise as you can, given the word limits: cite your primary sources and give Qur'an verse references

  • Papers will be approximately 20 minutes with 10 minutes for questions, so plan accordingly

Please consult this brief guide, written by Professor Kecia Ali on "Writing a Successful Annual Meeting Paper Proposal."

Proposal Formatting

  1. No transliteration, but with apostrophe used for hamza, open single quotation mark used for ʿayn, and wa- 'l used to indicate hamzat al-wasl (note also sh rather than š; j rather than ğ; gh rather than ġ; th rather than t)

  2. Qur'an and qur'anic; Bible and biblical; Sunni and Sh'i

  3. All taʾ marbutahs are to be included; note especially surah, not sura

  4. All foreign terms are to be italicized (including Qur'an citations), unless they are reverse-italicized in paper titles

  5. Initial Qur'anic references to be formatted as follows: Q al-Baqarah 2:21; Q al-Nisa 4:39; 4:45, thereafter Q 2:21 etc.

  6. American spelling, not British spelling, throughout

  7. En-dashes rather than hyphens to indicate page ranges or spans of date, e.g. 744-745, not 744-745

  8. Oxford commas throughout

  9. Word initial capitalization in titles

  10. B.A., M.A., and Ph.D.

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