Arabic citation styles are not one system. Each graduate school and journal sets its own rules for توثيق المراجع (documenting references), and they fall into two families: APA written in Arabic, and footnotes, which Islamic studies and law journals often keep. This guide is published by EdCitation, whose tools look each reference up in the publisher's record rather than write it.
We read every rule below at its source on 26 September 2026, in guides and journal rules from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait and Algeria. Every translation is ours. The last section quotes what EdCitation's free Verify references returned on a real Arabic list, faults included.
Is there one Arabic citation style?
No. No guide we read names a pan-Arab standard. Taif University's graduate deanship follows the Harvard system (Taif University, n.d.); Amman Arab University's thesis guide adopts APA (Amman Arab University, 2014); Kuwait University's sharia journal uses footnotes; Jordan's Dirasat journals use APA 7 and publish no footnotes at all. Your own guide or journal decides, so read it first.
How is APA written in Arabic?
With APA's order of elements and Arabic words in place of the English ones.
The Arabic words for et al., and, no date and page
| English APA | Arabic form | Where we read it |
|---|---|---|
| et al. | وآخرون | ECAE library (UAE); Amman Arab University |
| & between authors | و before every author after the first | Amman Arab University |
| n.d. | لات (no date), with لام for no place and لان for no publisher | Amman Arab University |
| p., pp. | ص. and ص ص | ECAE; Amman Arab University |
| ed. (edition) | ط. | Amman Arab University; Assiut University |
| Hijri and Gregorian years | هـ and م after the year | Assiut University |
| Retrieved from | No Arabic form in any guide we read | Could not be confirmed |
The Emirates College for Advanced Education library gives the in-text pattern (القرني، 2015، ص. 45), with the Arabic comma ، throughout (Emirates College for Advanced Education Library, 2026). Amman Arab University's guide puts و before each co-author, "خلافا للمراجع الأجنبية" ("unlike foreign references", our translation), where only the last name takes "&". None of the pages we read gives an Arabic equivalent of "retrieved from"; Kuwait's sharia journal instead asks for the time a website was consulted, by day, hour and minute.
Where Arabic guides keep APA 6 habits
Two habits from earlier editions survive. ECAE's guide uses وآخرون only "بمجرد سرد أسماء جميع المؤلفين" ("once all the authors' names have been listed", our translation), and Amman Arab University also names every author at the first citation. APA 7 shortens three or more authors from the first citation, as our guide to when to use et al. shows. If your guide prints the older rule, follow your guide.
The Qur'an divides them too. Amman Arab University puts القرآن الكريم at the head of the list, outside any other rule; Kuwait University's sharia journal states that APA 7 does not require it in the list at all. Ask which your department wants.
Names are written in full
Arabic guides do not reduce Arabic forenames to initials. Amman Arab University writes family name, comma, first name: العربي، أحمد (2012). Taif University goes further and keeps the name in its natural order, first, middle and family name, while English names are inverted with initials. The two guides disagree, and it changes every entry.
When do Arabic papers use footnotes instead?
In many Islamic studies and law journals, though even two sharia journals differ.
Kuwait: full footnotes and المرجع السابق
Kuwait University's Journal of Sharia and Islamic Studies wants each citation in a footnote, and a list at the end whose examples follow APA 7. The first note gives the author's three-part name, the title, the editor of the critical edition (تحقيق), publisher, place, edition, year, and volume and page. Its own example:
القزويني، أحمد ابن فارس، معجم مقاييس اللغة، تحقيق: عبد السلام محمد هارون (بيروت: دار الجيل،1991) ، ط2، ج:5، ص: 467.
A later note gives the title before the author: معجم مقاييس اللغة، أحمد ابن فارس، ج:5، ص: 467. A source repeated at once becomes "المرجع السابق" (the previous reference), the Arabic counterpart of ibid., which our guide to ibid, op. cit. and loc. cit. explains (Kuwait University Academic Publication Council, n.d.).
Jordan: APA, and no footnotes, even in sharia
Dirasat: Shari'a and Law Sciences, from the University of Jordan, says the opposite: "This journal does not publish footnotes", and citations follow APA. Its examples give Arabic works in English translation, such as a 2016 article by Nasrawin on the Constitutional Court (Dirasat: Shari'a and Law Sciences, n.d.). Its sister journal in the humanities asks for APA 7 by name and also bans footnotes (Dirasat: Human and Social Sciences, n.d.).
Algeria and Egypt: APA with notes at the foot of the page
The Sétif 2 University journal مجلة الآداب والعلوم الاجتماعية asks for APA in the list but footnotes at the bottom of the page, "حسب طريقة APA" ("following the APA method", our translation), a hybrid of the two (Mohamed Lamine Debaghine University Sétif 2, n.d.). Assiut University (2020) in Egypt takes a narrower view: a footnote is a comment, and if it must point to a source it gives only the family name, year and page.
Do Arabic references go before English ones?
Often, but not always. Amman Arab University divides the list in two, "قائمة المراجع باللغة العربية، ثم قائمة المراجع باللغة أو اللغات الأجنبية" (the Arabic list, then the foreign-language list, our translation). Kuwait's sharia journal sets Arabic references from the far right first, then foreign ones from the far left. Taif University does the opposite: one list, Arabic and foreign works together in alphabetical order.
The order of letters is a second question. Kuwait asks for Arabic works "مرتبة هجائية وليس أبجدياً" (in hijāʾī order, not abjad order, our translation), that is, the order of the modern Arabic alphabet rather than the old أبجد هوز sequence. Sétif accepts "ترتيبا أبجديا أو ألف بائي" (abjad or alphabetical order, our translation), so ask which.
How does one article look in each style?
Differently in almost every element, as Hadi (2022), a real Dirasat article, shows.
| Element | Arabic APA practice | Footnote practice | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Family name, Arabic comma, full forenames | Three-part name, family name first in Kuwait's example | هادي، أبرار أحمد |
| Two authors | و before the second | Not set out in Kuwait's rules | شطناوي، فيصل، وحتاملة، سليم |
| Year | In brackets after the author | With the issue, near the end | (2022) |
| Article title | Plain, then a full stop | In quotation marks, before the author for an article in Kuwait's order | "المسؤولية الاجتماعية..." |
| Journal | Italic, with volume and issue | Name, then issue and date | دراسات: علوم الشريعة والقانون، 49(1) |
| Page | Range in the list; ص. in the text | ص: and the page used | ص. 20 |
| Repeat | Author and year again | المرجع السابق | المرجع السابق، ص: 21 |
| Checking | Verify references | Verify references | DOI 10.35516/law.v49i1.814 |
Written out, on Amman Arab University's APA pattern:
هادي، أبرار أحمد. (2022). المسؤولية الاجتماعية عند الإمام الجويني في كتابه "غياث الأمم في التياث الظلم" دراسة تأصيلية. دراسات: علوم الشريعة والقانون، 49(1)، 14-29. https://doi.org/10.35516/law.v49i1.814
And as a first footnote, in the order Kuwait's page sets for an article (its punctuation follows the journal's book example; page 20 is illustrative):
"المسؤولية الاجتماعية عند الإمام الجويني في كتابه غياث الأمم في التياث الظلم دراسة تأصيلية"، هادي، أبرار أحمد، دراسات: علوم الشريعة والقانون، ع 1 (2022)، ص: 20.
How are Arabic names alphabetised?
By the family name, or by the best-known part of the name, with the article al- set aside. Amman Arab University says that when a family name begins with ال, the article is ignored and الشهري is filed under ش; Kuwait's journal drops "ال" in Arabic and "The" in English alike.
Older names need more care. The IFLA Cataloguing Section (2018) lists the parts: the kunya (Abu or Umm and a child's name, as Abu Bakr), the ism (given name), the nasab (ibn and the father's name), the laqab (an epithet) and the nisba (a name of origin, as al-Baghdadi). A classical author is filed under the shuhra, the best-known element: IBN HAZM, AL-JAHIZ, ABU HAYYAN AL-TAWHIDI. A modern author is filed under the last element. IFLA notes al- is "sometimes disregarded by libraries", and that in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco the nasab is written ben.
Where there is no family name, Egypt's Assiut University (2020) files a reference under "اللقب أو الجد" (the family name or the grandfather's name, our translation), the last element of a three-part name.
How do right-to-left references go wrong?
Through punctuation, and through look-alike letters. Ishida (2016) explains that spaces and punctuation have no direction of their own: they take the direction of the text around them, and at a boundary between Arabic and Latin text, the paragraph's base direction. So a full stop after a DOI or a bracket round a Latin journal name can land at the wrong end of an Arabic line. Set each Arabic entry as a right-to-left paragraph and each English entry as left-to-right, which is what Kuwait's far right and far left mean in practice.
The letters matter as much. The Crossref record for DOI 10.21608/pshj.2017.100037, an Egyptian psychology article, spells its title with the Persian ی and ک in place of the Arabic ي and ك. A plain text search treats them as different letters. Kuwait's journal uses the same article as a sample, and its title lacks a word the record has, طيف (spectrum): a sample in a guide is a pattern, not a record.
How do you romanise Arabic in a reference?
With the transliteration system your journal names, most often IJMES in Middle East studies. The International Journal of Middle East Studies (n.d.) guide sets the rules students trip on:
- Personal names and titles of books and articles take no diacritics, but keep ʿayn and hamza.
- The article al- is lower case everywhere except at the start of a sentence or note, and stays when a name is shortened: Hasan al-Banna becomes al-Banna.
- Ibn and Abu are lower case only after a name: Ali ibn Abi Talib, but Ibn Khaldun.
- Titles take English capitals, as in Faysal al-Tafriqa bayn al-Islam wa-l-Zandaqa.
- Tāʾ marbūṭa is a, and a nisba ends -iyya.
The Library of Congress page for the ALA-LC Arabic table asked for a bot check on the day, so we give none of its rules; IFLA (2018) lists ALA-LC among the schemes in use. For a paper in English, ECAE's English guide says Arabic script is not used in an APA list: the title is transliterated and followed by an English translation in square brackets (Emirates College for Advanced Education Library, 2020).
Where Arabic journals are indexed
The Arabic Citation Index (ARCI), launched in Egypt in August 2020 and funded by the Egyptian government, covers "over 400 expertly curated Arabic journals" on the Web of Science, with English and Arabic interfaces (Clarivate, 2020). Some Arabic DOIs lead to aggregators, not the journal: 10.12816/0007934, a 2013 Dirasat article, resolves to Al Manhal, and 10.35516/0272-043-003-014 to Dar Almandumah. The Egyptian Knowledge Bank's journal pages did not load on the day, so no Egyptian journal's rules are quoted.
How do I build an Arabic reference list?
- Read your guide: APA or footnotes, one list or two, and which Arabic words it wants.
- Search in Arabic with EdCitation's Find sources.
- Take author, title, volume and pages from the article's own page, not from a sample.
- For APA, start from the entry Cite a source builds from the DOI, then write the names, و, ص. and the Arabic journal title by hand.
- Order the list as your guide says, ignoring al-.
- Check each Arabic line runs right to left, then paste the list into Verify references and resolve every flag by hand.
What did EdCitation's tools return on Arabic references?
EdCitation never writes any part of a student's paper; every reference it returns comes from a record. Cite a source builds APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver only, free, and no Arabic style; an Arabic APA entry can start from its APA entry, adjusted by hand.
Verify references on an Arabic list
Verify references looks each entry up in the publisher's record, a check no chatbot can do, free with no account. We pasted seven real entries, then the harder forms one at a time:
- Hadi (2022), the 2013 Dirasat article by شطناوي and حتاملة, and the Egyptian article, each with its DOI: verified, "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches." Hadi (2022) also verified without its DOI, and with the author romanised.
- Aldeihani (2022), with its Arabic title and the author's Latin name: verified. Under its English title only, "could not check": "The DOI resolves to a record titled "أثر المقاصد في المعاملات المنهي عنها", in another script or language from your entry, so the titles could not be compared."
- Kuwait's sample book, which carries the Egyptian article's DOI: "check this", "This is the same work as entry 1. A reference list gives each work once."
- Ibn Faris's dictionary in Kuwait's footnote form: "could not check": "This entry is written in a script the publishers' indexes and catalogues searched here cover only in part. Check it in a national library's or the publisher's catalogue, or add its DOI."
- Nasrawin's 2016 article, as Dirasat's own example gives it in English: "not found", "No publisher's or registry's record matches this reference."
An Arabic entry is matched letter for letter, Persian ی and ک in a record included. Check any flag by hand, as in our guide to checking a reference is real.
Cite a source and Find sources
For DOI 10.35516/law.v49i1.814, Cite a source returned in APA:
هادي, أ. أ. (2022). المسؤولية الاجتماعية عند الإمام الجويني في كتابه “غياث الأمم في التياث الظلم” دراسة تأصيلية. Dirasat: Shari’a and Law Sciences, 49(1), 14–29. https://doi.org/10.35516/law.v49i1.814
with "(هادي, 2022)" in the text. Fix by hand: the Latin comma for ،, initials for the full forenames, and the English journal name for دراسات: علوم الشريعة والقانون. Its IEEE entry abbreviated the journal's English name, "Dirasat: Shari’a Law Sci."; its BibTeX export keeps the Arabic author and title as written. For the Egyptian DOI it kept the record's Persian letters (ی for ي) and joined the authors with "&".
Find sources handled Arabic well. "الرقابة على دستورية القوانين" (judicial review of the constitutionality of laws) returned 109,819 results; 99 of the first 100 had Arabic titles, led by a 2024 Algerian article. Names came forename first, as in "نوار أمجوج", so invert them for the list. Pro ($8 a month) adds References from a file; see pricing, and our guides to Turkish and Korean citation.
Quick questions
What is the Arabic for et al. in APA?
وآخرون, in the Arabic guides we read; some use it only after every author has been named once.
Do Arabic references come before English ones?
In Amman Arab University's and Kuwait's rules, yes. Taif University mixes them in one list.
Do I ignore al- when alphabetising Arabic names?
In the Arabic guides we read, yes: الشهري files under ش. IJMES keeps al- when a name is shortened, as al-Banna.
Do Islamic studies papers use footnotes?
Often, but not everywhere. Kuwait University's sharia journal requires footnotes; Jordan's Dirasat: Shari'a and Law Sciences forbids them.
Can EdCitation build an Arabic citation style?
No. EdCitation's Cite a source builds six styles; start from its APA entry and adjust it by hand.
References
- Aldeihani, M. (2022). أثر المقاصد في المعاملات المنهي عنها [Effect of objectives on prohibited transactions]. Dirasat: Shari'a and Law Sciences, 49(3), 76–91. https://doi.org/10.35516/law.v49i3.75
- Amman Arab University. (2014). دليل إعداد الرسائل الجامعية [Guide to preparing university theses] [PDF]. Deanship of Scientific Research and Graduate Studies. https://www.aau.edu.jo/sites/default/files/2018-12/regulations%20of%20theses%20writing%20guidebook.pdf
- Assiut University. (2020). دليل القواعد التنظيمية لإعداد الرسائل العلمية بجامعة أسيوط [Regulatory rules for preparing theses at Assiut University] [PDF]. https://www.aun.edu.eg/commerce/sites/default/files/pdf/%D8%AF%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%84%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%AF%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%86%D8%B8%D9%8A%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9%20%D9%84%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%84%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%8A%D8%A9.pdf
- Clarivate. (2020, August 17). Clarivate launches the Arabic Citation Index in Egypt. https://clarivate.com/news/clarivate-launches-the-arabic-citation-index-in-egypt/
- Dirasat: Human and Social Sciences. (n.d.). Manuscript submission overview. University of Jordan. https://dsr.ju.edu.jo/djournals/index.php/Hum/MSO
- Dirasat: Shari'a and Law Sciences. (n.d.). Manuscript submission overview. University of Jordan. https://dsr.ju.edu.jo/djournals/index.php/Law/MSO
- Emirates College for Advanced Education Library. (2020). Referencing guide: Arabic resources. https://libguides.ecae.ac.ae/c.php?g=557398&p=7207400
- Emirates College for Advanced Education Library. (2026). APA7th: المرشد في التوثيق العلمي للمراجع [APA 7th: A guide to documenting references]. https://libguides.ecae.ac.ae/Arabic/APA7thArabic
- Hadi, A. A. (2022). المسؤولية الاجتماعية عند الإمام الجويني في كتابه "غياث الأمم في التياث الظلم" دراسة تأصيلية [Social responsibility in al-Juwayni's Ghiyath al-umam: A foundational study]. Dirasat: Shari'a and Law Sciences, 49(1), 14–29. https://doi.org/10.35516/law.v49i1.814
- IFLA Cataloguing Section. (2018). Names of persons: Arabic names [PDF]. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. https://repository.ifla.org/items/74fb713d-8c3a-4551-8d69-01041dc7ed5d
- International Journal of Middle East Studies. (n.d.). IJMES translation and transliteration guide [PDF]. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-file-manager/file/630d1d754cf5970011527e65/IJMES-Translation-and-Transliteration-guide.pdf
- Ishida, R. (2016). Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm basics. W3C Internationalization. https://www.w3.org/International/articles/inline-bidi-markup/uba-basics
- Kuwait University Academic Publication Council. (n.d.). قواعد النشر [Publication rules]. Journal of Sharia and Islamic Studies. https://journals.ku.edu.kw/jsis/index.php/jsis/Publication-Rules
- Mohamed Lamine Debaghine University Sétif 2. (n.d.). تعليمات للمؤلفين [Instructions for authors]. مجلة الآداب والعلوم الاجتماعية. https://revues.univ-setif2.dz/index.php//jlss/Specific-Instructions
- Taif University. (n.d.). دليل كتابة الرسائل العلمية [Guide to writing theses] [PDF]. Deanship of Graduate Studies. https://www.tu.edu.sa/Attachments/1408149b-5061-48cc-85c2-12fc507856bf_.pdf