More people now read the Quran on phones, tablets and computer screens, opening an app on the way to work or between tasks. That raises a much-discussed question in fiqh, Islamic jurisprudence: if ablution (wudu) is required to touch a printed Quran, is it also required to read one on a phone? Prothom Alo's religion desk set out the answer from the Quran, the hadith and the books of fiqh.
Touching a printed Quran, the mushaf, without wudu is forbidden by consensus. The basis is verse 79 of Surah al-Waqiah, which says none shall touch it but the purified. The Prophet (peace be upon him) gave the same instruction in a letter to the Companion Amr ibn Hazm (Muwatta Imam Malik, hadith 468). On this basis jurists of all four schools agree that holding the pages or script of a printed Quran without wudu is not permitted.
Verses on a screen do not have the same status. Ink on paper is permanent; text on a screen is electronic data, points of light (pixels), which vanish when the app or screen is closed. For this reason Islamic law does not treat a mobile phone as a mushaf.
A principle of Hanafi fiqh also applies: a mushaf may be held through a separate covering, such as a cloth or handkerchief, that is not attached to it. Imam Ibn Abidin wrote in Radd al-Muhtar (1/173) that holding or carrying the Quran without wudu is lawful through a covering or bag that is not sewn or attached to the mushaf. The glass of a phone acts as such a separate covering, with the verses beneath it, so the script itself is never touched.
Contemporary fatwa boards, Darul Uloom Deoband among them, hold that because a phone is not a mushaf, holding it and reading the Quran from its screen without wudu is permissible. Good manners, though, ask that a reader without wudu avoid placing a finger on the visible verses and scroll from a blank part of the screen or by holding the phone's body.
Reciting the Quran from memory without wudu is also permissible by consensus, except in a state of major impurity that requires a full bath (ghusl), and reading from a phone is treated as equivalent to reciting from memory. The article concludes that while reading on a phone without wudu is lawful, reading with wudu shows the Quran the greatest respect, and physical and inner purity add to the peace and reward of recitation.
Photo: Kaliper1 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Prothom Alo
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