This article examines the Living Qur’an in the tradition of tahfiz (Qur’an memorization) learning in pesantren, focusing on how santri receive Qur’anic verses through three interrelated practices: recitation (tilāwah), memorization and review (ḥifẓ and murāja‘ah), and reflection on meaning (tadabbur). Tahfiz is often treated as a technical matter of memorization targets, although it is also a lived encounter between santri and the Qur’an, with its own modes of reception, values, and risks. Using a qualitative library-research design and a descriptive-analytical reading, the study draws on literature in Living Qur’an and reception studies, pesantren and Islamic education, and social and educational theory, and it grounds the analysis in Qur’anic verses on tarbiyah (education), among them QS. al-‘Alaq: 1–5, al-Jumu‘ah: 2, Āli ‘Imrān: 79, al-Isrā’: 106, and al-Furqān: 32. The findings show that (1) the verses on education frame tahfiz as a graded process of tilāwah, tazkiyah, and ta‘līm, not merely as memorization; (2) recitation carries a dominantly aesthetic mode of reception, memorization an aesthetic and functional mode, and reflection on meaning an exegetical mode; (3) without accompaniment by meaning, each practice risks becoming a routine detached from understanding and conduct; and (4) pesantren need a simple design that links recitation, memorization, meaning, and exemplary conduct. The study is conceptual and its propositions require testing through fieldwork in pesantren
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