There is a difference of opinion amongst the scholars; some scholars have given their opinion against it, where as majority of the scholars are of the opinion that if one has stored Quran or any Islamic material in any media (like compact disk, memory chip, mobile phone etc) and entered the bathroom or toilet along with the storage device, there is absolutely no harm.
The second opinion is supported with this argument, every Muslim has at least stored or remembered some surah(chapters) of the Quran in the brain, if one can enter toilet or in privacy in this case then why not when one is along with any invented storage device.-
If one will be knowledgeable about how data is stored in any electronic device, then it would be easy for one to understand what I am going to explain:-
The data stored in any mobile phone is store in the form of binary code (consisting of 0’s and 1’s) if the data stored is ‘A’ then it would not written ‘A’ there, but some binary code which would denote it(here I am only talking about the storage and not about how it is displayed on screen). Similarly if you have Quran app installed on your device, it would not be in original text but in the binary code. Thus if you enter in to toilet with your device having 010101010101111010001’s stored in it (but phones screen is off) there will be absolutely no harm. But if you open the Quran app software (which generates the exact text of Quran from this binary code) or have any ayah of quran displayed on screen, while in toilet or privacy, then it is absolutely prohibited in Islam. And Allah alone knows the best.
