I am very interested in your mobile phone Qur'an concept. But I am also a bit curious regarding the hukum of handling holy book in a virtual mode.

Q. I am very interested in your mobile phone Qur'an concept. But I am also a bit curious regarding the hukum of handling holy book in a virtual mode. For example, now that my phone contains the ayaas of the Quran, can I still carry the phone in the pocket of my pants? And if I need to go the public rest-rooms (as in restaurants) / toilets, do I have to leave the phone outside?

AssalamuAlaikum,

Brother JazaaqAllahu khair for asking us this question. First of all we should clarify that we are not scholars of Islam and so the following opinion is absolutely our own based on our understanding and thought.

Brother Islam is a simple and logical religion. By creating limitations especially in gaining the knowledge of Islam we only affect ourselves. With the advent of technology and computers, a lot of things have changed. Let us ask you this, right now say you are using your computer which is logged onto the internet. Let's assume you are not in the state of wudu. As soon as you logged onto the internet, your computer implicitly has direct access to all the knowldge on it, be it Haram (all sorts of pornographic, anti-islamic material etc) or Halal (Knowledge of Islam, Quran, educational material etc). Now, since you're not in a state of wudu, does this mean you should keep away from typing on the computer and take it outside your room? Of course not.

Similarly, if your mobile phone has the Quran installed, you can make sure it's not running (and you're not reciting it) when you go into the rest room etc. This is only common sense brother.

Now, regarding the software installed on the phone itself - we consider it completely Halal. Brother a mobile phone or a computer or a PC - any sort of device that can store a software has something called 'Memory' where it stores things. Similarly, us humans can be considered 'computers' with 'memories' where we store things. There may be many things that we memorize in addition to the Qur'an. This however would not make it haram to carry your head around. Now, say you're a hafiz and you have learnt and memorized the complete Qur'an. There may be times when you'd want to go to the toilet, and of course there would be times when you're not in a clean state or in a place where you wouldn't feel fit reciting the Noble Qur'an. If we base our decision not to memorize the Noble Quran just because we would be working as cleaners in a rest room then that would be silly. If that is not haram, then similarly it cannot be haram to store the Quran in a computer or a mobile phone or any device. Think of it as your 'extra' memory, since that's what it exactly is. It's a device for storing details (contact details, softwares, reminders etc etc). When you're in a toilet, don't open it and start reciting just as you wouldn't start reciting if you were a hafiz. If you are in a clean state, read it as much as you like.

Similarly brother no one can be in a state of wudu at all times. There are several rulings on as to whether its allowed to read the Qur'an without wudu or not. One example is that of non-muslims. Without reading the Qur'an they cannot be converted. Nowadays most people converting buy their own copy, read the translation and are inspired by it to become muslims. If it was not allowed for them to read it without wudu then no one would become muslims except those born as one.

In any case, we should make use of technology as much as we can for Allah as we do for anything else. If you were a physician and we produced a book on physics for mobiles, you would have loved to read it whenever possible in order to revise and practice. Why cannot this be applied to Allah (swt) when it comes to the love of Islam? By depriving ourselves of the Noble Qur'an we only cause grief to ourselves.

Another example before we wrap it up is of a person who mailed us some time back saying that all his life he had been reciting Surah Al-Takathur. However on his way back from work in a bus, he read it's translation for the first time and was completely ecstatic. The Qur'an is a book of guidance and rememberance of Allah, and surely the true peace of heart lies in the rememberance of Allah:

Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find peace and satisfaction. (Ra'd 13:28)

I am getting a "file format unsupported" message. I am sure I have previous installed .jar files and they worked. Why not the QuranReader?

Viewed 4489 times since Sun, May 25, 2008

I am now on the surah/chapter list and clicking Goto Bookmark doesn't do anything, it keeps telling me that no bookmarks have been set. How do I goto a surah/chapter?

Viewed 2898 times since Sun, May 25, 2008

The software has no feature of selecting a particular verse. How do I do that?

Viewed 2645 times since Sun, May 25, 2008

How do I go back to the index from within a chapter?

Viewed 2731 times since Sun, May 25, 2008

The software has the title QuranReader [MK]. What does this mean?

Viewed 3135 times since Sun, May 25, 2008