What is the impurity that prevents a polytheist from reading the Qur'an?
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The Shaykh : Allah the Exalted said: [At-Tawbah 9:28], and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Some scholars have claimed that the impurity that prevents one from reading the Qur'an is shirk (associating partners with Allah). Where is the impurity that prevents the Qur'an? Is there any mention in the Book or the Sunnah that the impure one does not read the Qur'an? I ask you, please.
Some of these scholars said that the statement in the well-known hadith of 'Amr ibn Hazm, "No one touches the Qur'an except one who is in a state of purity," means "except one who is a Muslim." This is subject to scrutiny. First, it is not the custom of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) to describe a Muslim as "one in a state of purity." Second, a polytheist is not ritually impure in a tangible sense, with impurity in his hand or on his body, such that we would say he does not touch the Qur'an because he is impure and dirty. Indeed, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) performed wudu' (ablution) while he and his companions were eating from the provisions of a polytheist woman. A woman from the People of the Book is lawful for a Muslim; he may have intercourse with her and become soiled by her moisture. There is much evidence that the impurity of a disbeliever is a spiritual impurity, not a tangible one. The questioner, Umm Abdullah, says:
indeed the polytheists are unclean, so let them not approach al-Masjid al-Haram
إِنَّمَا الْمُشْرِكُونَ نَجَسٌ فَلَا يَقْرَبُوا الْمَسْجِدَ الْحَرَامَIndeed, a Muslim can become impure
إن المسلم لينجسSome of these scholars said that the statement in the well-known hadith of 'Amr ibn Hazm, "No one touches the Qur'an except one who is in a state of purity," means "except one who is a Muslim." This is subject to scrutiny. First, it is not the custom of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) to describe a Muslim as "one in a state of purity." Second, a polytheist is not ritually impure in a tangible sense, with impurity in his hand or on his body, such that we would say he does not touch the Qur'an because he is impure and dirty. Indeed, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) performed wudu' (ablution) while he and his companions were eating from the provisions of a polytheist woman. A woman from the People of the Book is lawful for a Muslim; he may have intercourse with her and become soiled by her moisture. There is much evidence that the impurity of a disbeliever is a spiritual impurity, not a tangible one. The questioner, Umm Abdullah, says:
Source
الفتاوى الثلاثية (2) -1 — binothaimeen.net (33:10)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.