This question comes up constantly, and the answers people receive are often more restrictive than any school actually requires. The confusion comes from collapsing three separate questions into one. Separating them makes the picture clear.
Three different questions
Question one: can you recite the Quran from memory without wudu. Question two: can you touch a physical mushaf without wudu. Question three: does minor impurity differ from major impurity here. These have different answers and mixing them is the source of most of the confusion.
Reciting from memory without wudu
The majority position across the four schools is that reciting the Quran from memory while in a state of minor impurity, meaning you have broken wudu in the ordinary way, is permitted. It is considered better to have wudu, and the Prophet is reported to have disliked mentioning Allah without purity, but recitation itself is not prohibited.
So if you have broken wudu and want to recite Surah Yasin from memory, on a commute, while walking, or lying down, the majority of scholars permit it. Making wudu first is better where it is practical.
Touching the mushaf
This is where the requirement sits. The majority of scholars across the four schools hold that touching the physical mushaf requires wudu, citing the verse stating that none touch it except the purified and a well-known letter of the Prophet to the people of Yemen.
A minority of scholars, including some of the Zahiris and a number of later authorities, held that the verse refers to angels rather than to human readers and that touching the mushaf without wudu is permitted. This is a real scholarly position, not a modern invention, but it is a minority one.
The practical workaround the majority themselves permit is well established: turning pages with a barrier such as a cloth or a pen, and holding a mushaf inside a cover, are generally allowed without wudu.
Reading from a phone or tablet
This is the question most people actually have, and the answer is more relaxed than most expect. The widely held contemporary position, including from major fatwa bodies across schools, is that a phone or tablet displaying Quranic text does not have the ruling of a mushaf. The text is not printed on the device; it is a display that changes when you close the app.
The practical consequence is that reading Surah Yasin from a phone app or a website without wudu is permitted by the majority of contemporary scholars. Having wudu remains better as a matter of respect.
This is worth knowing, because a large number of people now do most of their reading this way. Our full read page is designed for exactly that kind of session.
Major impurity
The ruling tightens here. The majority of scholars hold that a person in a state of major impurity, requiring ghusl, should not recite the Quran until they have performed ghusl, whether from memory or from a text. The Hanafi position is particularly clear on this.
There is a difference of opinion regarding menstruation. The majority position restricts recitation during menstruation. A significant minority, including the Maliki school for women who fear forgetting what they have memorised, and a number of respected contemporary scholars following Ibn Hazm and others, permit recitation during menstruation on the basis that no authentic prohibition is established. Both positions are held by serious scholars and a woman following either is on defensible ground.
Remembrance, du’a, listening to recitation, and reading a translation are agreed to be permitted in all of these states.
What to do in practice
If you want a simple rule that keeps you within the majority position on everything: keep wudu when you can, use your phone when you cannot, and do not let the absence of wudu become a reason you skip the reading altogether. The person who reads Surah Yasin daily from an app without wudu is doing considerably better than the person who intends to read it properly and never does.
If your situation is specific, involving illness, incontinence, or a condition that makes wudu difficult, there are established concessions for exactly those cases and you should ask someone qualified rather than work it out from an article.
Frequently asked questions
Can I listen to Surah Yasin without wudu?
Yes. Listening requires no state of purity by agreement.
Can I read a translation without wudu?
Yes. A translation is not the Quran and does not carry the ruling of the mushaf.
Does reading from a website count as touching a mushaf?
The majority of contemporary scholars say no, since the text is displayed rather than printed and is not permanently present on the device.
Which school should I follow on this?
Follow the position of scholars you trust or the school followed in your community. The differences here are genuine differences of interpretation, not one side being right and the other careless.