Tuesday, 26 May 2026 (10 Dhuʻl-Hijjah 1447 AH)
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[Scattered Papers That Contain the Quran or the Remembrance of Allah]

Question: What is required of a Muslim regarding what he sees of many accumulated, scattered papers in the streets, in rubbish dumps, and in homes, which contain the Quran, or the remembrance of Allah, or His names, and so on?
And is it permissible to make a magazine that contains the remembrance of Allah into a tablecloth for food?
And is it permissible to place a book above the Quran codex?

The answer—and Allah is the One who grants success—is that children who play with notebooks that contain the remembrance of Allah and the Quran are not legally responsible, and that adults who throw those papers and booklets into rubbish dumps and the like throw them without paying attention to what is in them.
Accordingly, what is required is to alert people to what is obligatory of reverence for the remembrance of Allah: so the teacher alerts to that in his school, the head of a household in his household, the caretaker of a mosque in his mosque, and so on. This is among mutual exhortation to the truth.
Some scholars of the school have mentioned that it is permissible to burn papers that contain the remembrance of Allah, to protect them from being trodden upon and exposed to humiliation.
As for the answer to the second question: what is obligatory is to revere the name of Allah, the Exalted, and to revere His remembrance. If placing food on the magazine and using it as a tablecloth is contempt and belittlement of the remembrance of Allah, then it is not permissible; but if placing it upon it is for seeking blessing through the remembrance of Allah, then there is no harm in that. However, it is not permissible that the magazine be thrown into the rubbish dump after the food, for that contradicts veneration and reverence; rather, it should be burned or placed in an honored place.
As for the answer to the third question: there is no harm in placing books, some over others, including the Quran codex. What is forbidden is to treat the Book of Allah with contempt—by speech or by action. There is no contempt in what the questioner mentioned if it is without intending contempt.
Yes: the answer to these three questions is built upon what usually occurs without intention and without aiming at contempt for the remembrance of Allah. As for when it is with the intention of that, then all of it is prohibited.

Source: Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.3