Can one hold Qur’an tapes without Wudu

Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate

Yes, it is permitted to touch Qur’an tapes and media without being in a state of ritual purity. This is because the prohibition of carrying or touching the Qur’an relates only to that which is customarily considered to be the written text of the Qur’an.

As for that which is on tapes and the like—such as computer CDs—it is not customarily considered to be the written text of the Qur’an. [Thus, it would be permitted to touch.] It is actually akin to that which someone has memorized of the Qur’an: it is permitted, by consensus, for the person without wudu to carry someone who has memorized the Qur’an. It is possible to deduce the permissibility of the issue at hand by analogy (qiyas) through this. And Allah alone gives success.

I asked my teacher, the scholar of verification Shaykh Muhammad al-Khatib, and he concurred regarding the permissibility of this issue, and mentioned the same analogy.

Amjad Rasheed

Tarim (Hadramawt, Yemen)

(Translated by Faraz Rabbani)

السؤال : هل يجوز لغير المتوضئ حمل شريط مسجل عليه آيات وسور من القرآن الكريم ؟ الجواب : نعم يجوز له ذلك ؛ لأن حرمة حمل المصحف ومسه على المحدث إنما هي بالنسبة للقرآن المكتوب عرفاً ، وما في الشريط ونحوه من أقراص الكمبيوتر لا تعدُّ كتابةً عُرفاً ، وصورة المسألة أشبه بما هو ثابتٌ في حفظ الإنسان من القرآن ويجوز باتفاق حمل حافظ القرآن الكريم فيقاس عليه ما نحن فيه والله أعلم ، وقد سألت عن ذلك شيخنا المحقق محمداً الخطيب فاستظهر الجواز وأبدى القياس المذكور أيضاً .