Is It Permissible to Recite Quran While Menstruating?


Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Is it permissible for a woman in her menstruation to revise her memorization of the Quran from a text containing the Quran with translation and without touching the Arabic verses?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

According to the Hanafi school, it is not permissible for a woman in her menstruation to audibly recite the Quran, whether they are reciting from memory or the text. [Tahtawi/Shurunbulali, Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah]

However, other schools of thought are much more lenient in this regard and allow the recitation of the Quran for menstruating women when there is a need. Amongst the needs that would allow such an act is the need for revision of memorization. [Ibid.]

The Maliki School

In the Maliki school, a woman in her menses is permitted to audibly recite the Quran. As for holding or touching a copy of the Quran, only a student or teacher of the Quran may touch it.

Note the copy of the Quran (Mushaf) refers to a text that contains only the Quran. Tafsir or translations are permitted to touch even without purification.

Thus a sister who wishes to revise her Quran, this opinion grants much leeway.

The above answer is paraphrased from Shaykh Rami Nsour’s response to the same question submitted above.

Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch teaches Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he completed four years at the Darul Uloom Seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences.

He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he studied for three years in Dar al-Mustafa under some of the most outstanding scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib.

In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Quran and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Quranic exegesis, Islamic history, and several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.