Was My Last Period Chronic Vaginal Bleeding if I Only Had 14 Days of Purity After It?


Shafi'i Fiqh

Answered by Ustadha Shazia Ahmad

 

Question

I had my last period on September 11th, and it ended on September 15th. I started bleeding again on September 29th. 

I don’t know bleeding from the 11th-15th was menses or istihada and whether I should make up prayers. 

Should I pray on the 14th day of purity as one in chronic vaginal bleeding or consider it as menses?

Answer

Assalamu alaykum,

Thank you for your question. 

Sept 11th to 15th

If you had 15 days of no bleeding before this, you will consider those four days as valid menses.

Sept 29th

You should consider this one day of bleeding as chronic vaginal discharge and pray. On September 30th, you can consider the bleeding as menses, so you can then stop praying. 

Remember to count your 15 days from the hour that your period ended until the hour that it begins again. There is no need to make up prayers.

Purification and prayer during Istihada

If a woman is in a state of istihada, she should repeat her purification for every obligatory prayer in the Shafi`i school. 

This is the sequence: After the prayer time has come in, wash the private parts, apply a dressing (pad), and/or block the exiting of the discharge with cotton (or organic cotton tampon) or the like if she is not a virgin, make wudu with the intention of seeking permission to pray, and pray right away without delay. 

She may delay if she is waiting for a group to gather to pray, and she may pray her sunnahs while she waits.

She should pray her pre-fard sunnahs and then her fard and then her post-fard sunnahs on that purification whether alone or with a group. 

She can continue to pray non-obligatory prayers or carry a mushaf and read Qur’an until she prays the next obligatory prayer, in which case she must repeat the purification after its time has come in. [Summarized from the Reliance of the Traveller]

May Allah give you the best of this world and the next.

[Ustadha] Shazia Ahmad  

 

Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Ustadha Shazia Ahmad lived in Damascus, Syria, for two years, where she studied aqidah, fiqh, tajweed, Tafseer, and Arabic. She then attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she completed her Master’s in Arabic. Afterward, she moved to Amman, Jordan, where she studied fiqh, Arabic, and other sciences. She recently moved back to Mississauga, Canada, where she lives with her family.