Exploring the Lived Experience in a Phenomenological Inquiry of Meaning-Making and Interpretation among Readers of Arabic Classical and Sufi Texts

Abstract

Arabic literary studies and philology play a crucial role in preserving the cultural and intellectual heritage of the Arab world, yet their traditional focus has often emphasized textual and historical analysis over lived human experience. Within this field, limited attention has been given to how readers subjectively experience and interpret Arabic classical and Sufi literature as meaningful, transformative encounters. Despite growing scholarly interest, there remains a clearly identifiable research gap regarding how phenomenological processes shape readers’ interpretive engagement with these texts. What remains unclear is how readers internalize, embody, and reconstruct the meaning of these texts through emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual engagement. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, this study explores the lived experience of readers interacting with Arabic literary works to uncover the essence of interpretive meaning as it manifests in consciousness. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with ten participants experienced in Arabic classical and Sufi literature and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The results reveal that reading these texts functions as an existential and aesthetic act that intertwines spirituality, emotion, and identity, producing an ongoing dialogue between tradition and self-understanding. The findings also show that digital reading contexts are reshaping interpretive experiences, allowing for new forms of communal reflection and cultural continuity. These insights broaden current literary theory by positioning Arabic literature as a lived phenomenon rather than a static textual artifact, offering new directions for interdisciplinary and phenomenological research in the humanities.