Answered by Shaykh Amjad Rasheed
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 likesuch as computer CDsit 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)