Istihada (non-menstrual bleeding)

Istihada is bleeding that continues outside the time of menstruation. ² The reports describe it as "a vein, not menstruation", and al-Khattabi explains this as an ailment caused by ruptured vessels, not the menstrual blood the womb expels at a set time. ^{2 3} Abu Dawud treats it at length, with a run of chapters in the Book of Purification from chapter 108 to chapter 120. ⁴

The annotator, quoting al-Suyuti, names nine women who had istihada in the Prophet ﷺ's time: Fatima bint Abi Hubaysh; Umm Habiba bint Jahsh; her sister Hamna; their sister Zaynab, Mother of the Believers, if the report is sound; Sahla bint Sahl (so read in the scanned text); Sawda, Mother of the Believers; Asma' bint Marthad al-Harithiyya; Zaynab bint Abi Salama (may God be pleased with her); and Badina bint Ghaylan al-Thaqafiyya. ⁵

From the chapter's reports al-Khattabi builds a classification:

1. The woman with a habit: she has known days of menstruation from before the ailment, as in Umm Salama's report, "let her count the nights and days she used to menstruate each month… and leave the prayer for that long"; when that number is complete she bathes once and is then like any woman in a state of purity for prayer, fasting, circumambulation and relations with her husband, except that she performs ablution for each prayer, her purity being one of necessity like that of a person doing tayammum. ⁶
2. The woman who can distinguish: she sees the blood dark and thick for a time — the onset of menstruation — then thin and clear — its end — as in Fatima bint Abi Hubaysh's report, "when menstruation comes, leave the prayer". ^{3 7} Where the blood can be distinguished, he says, the ruling follows it even if she has known days. ⁸
3. The beginner: she has neither days nor distinction, like Hamna bint Jahsh, who was told, "count yourself as menstruating six or seven days, in God's knowledge, then bathe"; the Prophet referred her to the evident custom of women, which al-Khattabi takes as a basis for judging women's matters by one another in menstruation, pregnancy and puberty. ⁹
4. The confused woman: she cannot distinguish her blood, or had days and forgot them; she leaves no prayer and bathes for each one, since the time may coincide with the end of her bleeding; she fasts Ramadan with everyone and makes it up, and if on pilgrimage performs two circumambulations fifteen days apart — on the view that menstruation lasts at most fifteen days. ¹⁰

From the words "then let her bind herself with a cloth" al-Khattabi derives that a woman with istihada should bind a cloth to hold the blood and treat herself with cotton or the like to stop the flow, as Hamna was told, "I prescribe cotton for you"; if she does not, and blood comes, she repeats her ablution — and so too a person with incontinence of urine. ^{2 11}

On Fatima's report, "when your qur' comes do not pray", al-Khattabi says that qur' here means menstruation, its basic sense being the time at which menstruation or purity returns, so that each is called qur'; 'Umar held that the qur's of the waiting period are menstruations and 'A'isha that they are periods of purity, and the latter is also related from Zayd ibn Thabit (may God be pleased with him). ²

• Abu Dawud says that Qatada heard nothing from 'Urwa, and that Ibn 'Uyayna's addition "she leaves the prayer during her days" in al-Zuhri's report is his error. ¹²
• On Hamna's report he quotes Imam Ahmad, "I have some doubt about Ibn 'Aqil's report", notes that 'Amr ibn Thabit made "this is the more pleasing of the two to me" Hamna's words rather than the Prophet's, and relays from Yahya ibn Ma'in a harsh judgement of 'Amr ibn Thabit's sectarian leaning together with the statement that he was truthful in hadith. ¹³

The Hanafi, Maliki and Hanbali positions on the order of habit and distinction and on the minimum and maximum of menstruation, and modern medical readings of istihada, are still to be added from their sources.