When the Playlist Becomes the Pulpit: How Platform Logic Re-Oralizes, Serializes, and Domesticates the Qur’an in Digital Qur’anic Interpretation

Abstract

The mediatization of sacred texts in cyberspace is often perceived as a neutral extension of the medium that democratizes religious knowledge. However, serial video platforms increasingly reshape the very ways scripture is authorized, structured, and understood. This study examines the epistemological encounter between platform architecture and Qur’anic interpretation through a qualitative case study combined with transcript analysis. By analyzing the twenty-nine-episode series “Surah Ar-Rahman: A Deeper Look” by Nouman Ali Khan on Bayyinah TV, using Walter Ong’s concept of secondary orality and the framework of the mediatization of religious authority, the findings reveal that platform logic operates through three interlocking processes: the re-oralization of textuality, whereby authority rests on performance rather than transmission (isnād); the serialization of coherence, which subordinates the text’s unity to algorithmic retention; and the domestication of meaning through analogies that bind revelation to the digital consumer’s lifeworld. Consequently, this study highlights how the Qur’an is subsumed into a self-optimizing resource aligned with the neoliberal subject.