<![CDATA[The digitalization of pesantren rituals has turned practices once secluded from public view into mediated spectacles, yet studies of digital religion have rarely addressed what this does to the praying, reciting body. This article examines the murāqabah ritual (the collective recitation of five juz’ of the Qur’an in a single sitting) at Pondok Pesantren Hamalatul Qur’an (PPHQ) Jogoroto, Jombang, which, since 2023, has been live-streamed on YouTube and TikTok. Drawing on sensory and digital ethnography conducted between June 2024 and January 2025 through repeated visits and residential stays, participant observation, and in-depth interviews with the caretaker, the media team, ustādh, santri, and a santri’s parent, the study analyzes the shift from traditional bodily hexis to what we call panoptic hexis. The findings show that the presence of the camera produces a performative vigilance in which santri consciously manage posture, facial expression, and vocal projection as a form of moral accountability toward a virtual audience, while others practice an avoidance hexis, shielding their faces with the muṣḥaf. Unlike Bourdieu’s hexis, which operates below discursive consciousness, panoptic hexis works in two modes, an unreflective habit and a deliberate management of the self before the lens, of which the second predominates here, producing an oscillation between the presented and the resting body. The article argues that the camera functions simultaneously as a panoptic instrument, a technique of self-presentation, and a pedagogical device through which the kiai trains santri in the theological consciousness of being watched by God. ]]>
