Hikmah is a peer-reviewed, diamond open-access journal published by the 786-MIII Medicine platform. Articles are published continuously online and gathered into monthly issues. There are no fees for authors and no fees for readers.

Hikmah is the ethics-and-integrity journal of the 786-MIII platform. Its name comes from the universal philosophical sense of wisdom — the disciplined attempt to bring careful judgement, accountability, and moral seriousness to questions of medical knowledge and medical practice. The journal's scope is the moral architecture that holds medical evidence accountable. We publish work on research integrity and the social practices that make trustworthy science possible; publication ethics, including authorship norms, peer review, and the post-publication record; conflict-of-interest scrutiny across funders, authors, reviewers, and editors; the human dimensions of evidence-based medicine — how evidence is generated, who is studied, whose questions get asked, whose answers get heard; the moral logic of clinical decision-making under uncertainty; narrative and ethical case writing that examines the lived texture of medical practice; equity and global health justice, with explicit attention to power asymmetries in research priorities, in editorial gate-keeping, and in the allocation of medical attention; and the methodology of empirical ethics and meta-research on the integrity of the published record. Hikmah is a secular, philosophical journal. It draws on the breadth of moral and political philosophy as needed but does not privilege any particular religious, national, or cultural tradition. Authors are welcome to write from any tradition, but the journal's public framing is universal.

Article types

The journal welcomes essays (up to 4,000 words), viewpoints and debate pieces (up to 1,500 words each), case-based ethical analyses, and E156 micro-publications for empirical ethics, publication-ethics meta-research, and accountability audits.

• E156 Micro-publication (156-word body) — for empirical ethics, publication-ethics meta-research, and accountability audits.
• Essay (up to 4,000 words) — the journal's signature long form.
• Methods Paper (up to 3,000 words) — empirical ethics methodology.
• Narrative Review (up to 4,000 words)
• Case-Based Ethical Analysis (up to 2,500 words)
• Editorial (up to 1,500 words)
• Viewpoint (up to 1,500 words)
• Debate (paired, up to 1,200 words each)
• Reply / Response (up to 800 words)

The E156 evidence capsule and Assurance badges

• Bronze — basic reproducibility: data file present, code runs, dashboard generates, citation links resolve.
• Silver — audited reproducibility: all of Bronze, plus row-level provenance, automated tests pass, claims matched to outputs, limitations checked.
• Gold — independent verification: all of Silver, plus independent re-extraction, independent re-run, citation/source audit, repository correction-and-versioning policy active.

Policies overview

• Submissions & Author Guidelines
• Editorial Team
• Privacy Statement
• AI / LLM Disclosure Policy
• Complaints and Appeals
• Retraction and Correction Policy
• Contact

Peer Review Process

Hikmah follows a structured editorial and peer-review process aligned with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Each submission is first assessed by the editorial team for scope, completeness, and research integrity, then reviewed by individuals with relevant expertise who evaluate originality, methodological soundness, clarity, and significance. Final decisions rest with the editors and are based on the reviews and the scholarly merit of the work.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Hikmah upholds high standards of publication ethics and follows COPE guidance. Authors, editors, and reviewers are expected to act with integrity. The journal addresses allegations of misconduct—including plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, and redundant publication—and issues corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern where warranted.

Authorship

Authorship is limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the work. All listed authors approve the final version and agree to be accountable for it. Contributors not meeting authorship criteria are acknowledged.

Competing Interests

Authors must disclose any financial or non-financial competing interests that could be perceived to influence the work. Reviewers and editors recuse themselves from submissions in which they have a conflict of interest.

Data Availability

Authors are encouraged to make the data, code, and materials underlying their findings openly available where ethically and legally possible, and to include a data-availability statement.

Open Access and Licensing

Hikmah is a fully open-access journal. All articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), permitting use and redistribution with appropriate credit.