Should I Start Praying After the Strong Colors of My Menstruation Are Over?


Answered by Ustada Shazia Ahmad

Question

I have gone through Istihada quite frequently this year and calculated the days on which I experienced red, brown, and yellow discharge. I usually have black/red blood and brown discharge for 8-11 days and I understood that as my menses. But I will experience light spotting and yellow discharge afterwards that exceed 15 days. At times, I will be pure until 13 days and bleed afterwards which is istihada. That said, can I regard my maximum hayd as 11 days based on my previous hayd and regard myself as pure from the 12th day onwards?

Answer

Thank you for your question. May Allah facilitate your matter and make it easy for you to distinguish what is period and what is not.

Yes

If your strong colours finish by the 12th day, as you said, and then yellow appears and continues beyond the 15th day, you can consider the yellow as istihada and take your ghusl and start praying. However, don’t stick to the number 12, but act according to what you see. So if the next month, your strong colours finish by the 14th, then the yellow starts, that is when you would take your ritual bath. Go by the colours.

It’s excellent that you keep notes. Continue to do this and keep note of when your yellow stops because one day it might stop within 15 days, in which case, you would have no istihada at all. A useful thing that I learned from a friend is that her yellow discharge stopped after she started exercising and eliminated sugar from her diet. It’s worth a try.

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May Allah give you the best of this world and the next.
[Ustada] Shazia Ahmad
Checked and approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Ustadha Shazia Ahmad lived in Damascus, Syria for two years where she studied aqida, fiqh, tajweed, tafsir, and Arabic. She then attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she completed her Masters in Arabic. Afterward, she moved to Amman, Jordan where she studied fiqh, Arabic, and other sciences. She later moved back to Mississauga, Canada, where she lives with her family.