One of the beneficial technological advancements of the 21st century is that a digital copy of the Qur'an can be downloaded in its entirety or can be accessed via numerous apps on smartphones and tablets. This means that it possible to recite or listen to the Qur'an at all times; However, it also raises the question, is it permissible to touch a digital copy of the Qur'an without performing ablution (wuḍūʾ) or whilst a person is a state of major or minor impurity.1
In order to answer this, it is important to have a proper understanding of the difference between an e-book and a physical book. An e-book that can be read on the phone screen does not physically exist inside the phone; it is just a visualization being created in real-time by the phone's software and hardware. At the most fundamental level, everything stored digitally in a smartphone consists of binary data - long strings of zeroes and ones encoded on the hardware. For example, a page of the Qur'an in an e-book would be encoded as: 01001010 01110101 01110011 01110100. From this, it is clear that ablution is not a necessity to touch the text of the Qur'an on a phone screen. Another common concern is whether it is disrespectful to take a smartphone that contains a digital copy of the Qur'an into a bathroom. Given that an e-book is just a series of encoded zeros and ones, there is no issue.
In addition to this explanation, an analysis of the Qur'anic verse often used to establish the obligation of performing ablution in order to touch the Qur'an, shows that the verse is not addressing the issue at all. Sura Al-Waqi'ah (77-79) states,
“It is surely the Noble Qur'an in a protected book that is not touched except by the purified ones.”
Some Muslim scholars think that here the ‘Noble Qur'an’ refers to the physical book and the 'purified ones’ are people free from minor impurity and major impurity; therefore the verse is prohibiting people from touching the Qur'an until they are ritually purified.2
However, many Muslim scholars have noted that the ‘Noble Qur'an in a protected book’ is actually referring to the Preserved Tablet, in which everything is recorded and there can be no omissions or alterations. In this case the ‘purified ones’ is referring to the angels since only they have access.3 From this it is clear that the verse has no bearing on the physical state of purity since it is not concerning the human beings or the physical book. Furthermore, this verse was revealed in Mecca and all the injunctions relevant to ablution and bathing for purification were revealed in the later Medinan period.
1. Minor impurity means to be without wuḍūʾ. Major impurity refers to the state of impurity which is caused by sexual intercourse, discharge of semen, and menstrual and postpartum discharge that requires ghusl (bathing) to attain ritual purity.
2. Ma'arif al-Qur'an
3. Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm (Tafsir Ibn Kathir), Tafsir Durr al-Manthur, vol. 6, 162, Al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Qur'an, Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'I, vol. 37, 184-185