Should one do sajdah upon hearing sajdah talawat on a tape or CD?

In the name of Allah the Exalted

It is not wajib to perform the Sajdah when one has heard the Sajdah Tilawat Ayah from a tape or any other kind of recording. The reason is that the machine or sound instrument by which you hear the ayah from does not hold the status of a human being. I.e. it is not a living object with sense, it is not human voice, but it is sounds produced by mechanical and electrical means to be analogous to the voice of the person reading the Qur’an. The Ayat of sajda read on such an instrument will not make the Sajdah obligatory on the listener.

In my personal opinion this mas?ala can be derived from the ruling of the Sajdah Ayah heard by echo. If someone is in a mountainous region and they hear an echo of a Quranic Sajdah Ayah which someone may be reciting in another part of the same region and the echo carried the Ayah over a distance. In this circumstance it will not be wajib on the listener to execute the Sajdah of Tilawat. The focal incentive being that the Ayah of Sajdah is not being performed by a human person. The recitation reached the listener by means of the sound bouncing off the mountains. Thus, it was heard from something which is not a human voice even though it may sound like a human voice. The condition is that the recitation of the Sajdah Ayah is from a human being. This condition is not met with the echo nor is the condition met with the recoding instruments.
(Tanweerul Absaar alaa Shami, Chapter on Sujood Tilawat, Vol 1)

And Allah the All Supreme knows best
4 August 2005

————————————–
Mufti Abubakr Karolia
Batley, U.K
Founder of the “Islamic Foundation for Theology and Research” (I.F.T.A.R)