Reading Muslim cultural code: Case study One. Moroccan literature (MoMuLit)

MoMuLit is a multidisciplinary research project exploring how religion, literature, and cultural identity intersect in the Arabo-Islamic world through the case of Moroccan literature. The project highlights the role of literary production as an important space for theological reflection and cultural expression alongside more established forms of religious thought in Islamic studies.

Using approaches from semiotics, literary theory, and digital humanities, MoMuLit analyzes a broad corpus of Moroccan literature in both Standard and Moroccan Arabic, including poetry, oral traditions, and contemporary prose fiction. The project examines how Arab and Muslim identities are reflected and transmitted through literary language, themes, and cultural codes.

The research combines close textual analysis with AI-enabled recognition tools and digital humanities methodologies, allowing large-scale analysis of linguistic patterns, motifs, and representations of identity across diverse literary forms.

By focusing on Morocco as a case study, MoMuLit develops a replicable framework for studying literature and cultural identity across the wider Arabo-Islamic world. The project contributes to Arabic philology, comparative literature, Islamic studies, semiotics, and digital humanities, offering new perspectives on how religious and cultural knowledge are transmitted beyond traditional theological texts.