Regarding remembrance of Allah, people fall into four categories:
• The first is the one who remembers Allah with both their heart and tongue. This is the highest level of reward and is what the rulings and obligations of the Shariah are concerned with.
• The second is the one who remembers Allah only with their heart, which is contemplation. One is rewarded for it according to the extent of their contemplation, but it does not have a specific ruling.
• The third is the one who only remembers Allah with their tongue. While this is subject to a ruling, it does not necessarily result in obtaining the full reward and recompense. However, it does avoid accountability for neglecting to do so. It has been narrated in incompletely transmitted hadiths that the Prophet (PBUH) said, “Allah does not accept from a servant an action until his heart is present with his body” and “A person doesn’t have anything of their prayer except for what they have attentiveness to.”
• The fourth is the one who neglects both, which leads to a life of hardship and blindness in Day of Resurrection.
Therefore, everything that is mentioned in the Quran and Sunnah regarding the obligation or recommendation to read refers to the first meaning, which is to read with the tongue and contemplate with the heart. The order is fulfilled with reading with the tongue only.
As for reading with the heart, it is not valid to fulfill the order for it except for those who are unable to speak, such as the paralyzed or those who have lost their tongue, or those who are in such a condition. Allah says, “Read in the name of your Lord who created” (Al-Alaq, 96:1) and “I have been commanded to worship the Lord of this city, who has made it sacred and to whom belongs everything. I have been commanded to be one of the Muslims and to recite the Quran” (An-Naml, 27:91-92).
The Prophet (PBUH) said, “Read the Quran, but do not exaggerate in it, do not neglect it, do not use it for worldly gain, and do not make it a source of your livelihood.”
All of this does not apply to reading with the heart alone.
Fatwa by Dr. Khālid Naṣr