From OCR to Content Interpretation: Towards a Scalable Workflow for Arabic Literature in the Digital Humanities

Abstract

This article explores how Arabic literary texts can function as epistemic devices in Digital Humanities when computational methods are aligned with qualitative interpretation. After situating Arabic DH within global digitization efforts and pedagogical frameworks, we present an OCR-to-analysis workflow tailored to Arabic, comparing Tesseract and Qari-OCR. Finally, a qualitative reading of al-Aswānī’s Awrāq ʿIṣṣām ʿAbd al-ʿĀṭī highlights anger, hatred, and sadness as dominant emotions shaping a narrative of alienation and critique. The study demonstrates how digitization, analysis, and interpretation converge to enrich research and pedagogy within our project.