Ruling 469. Women who have a habit of time and duration are of two types:

1. a woman who on two consecutive months has her period at a fixed time, and her period also stops at a fixed time. For example, on two consecutive months she experiences bleeding on the first day of the month and it stops on the seventh. Therefore, her habit of ḥayḍ is from the first of the month to the seventh;

2. a woman who on two consecutive months has her period at a fixed time, and after she experiences bleeding for three or more days, it stops for one or more days, and then she experiences bleeding again; and the total number of days on which she experiences bleeding plus the days on which it stops in between do not exceed ten; and in both months, all the days on which she experiences bleeding and all the days on which it stops in between are the same. In such a case, her habit is the number of days on which she experienced bleeding without the addition of the number of days on which it stopped. Therefore, it is necessary that the days on which she experiences bleeding and the number of days on which it stops in between in both months be the same. For example, if in both months she experiences bleeding from the first day to the third, then it stops for three days, and then she experiences bleeding for another three days, her habit is six separated days. Furthermore, for the three days in between on which her period stops, she must, based on obligatory precaution, refrain from doing the things that are unlawful for a ḥāʾiḍ and do the things required of a mustaḥāḍah. In the event that the days on which she experiences bleeding in the second month are more or less than in the first month, she has a habit of time and not of duration.

Ruling 470. If a woman with a habit of time – irrespective of whether she also has a habit of duration or not – experiences bleeding during the time of her habit, or on one or more days earlier than the time of her habit such that it can be said that her habit has moved forward, then even if the bleeding does not have the attributes of ḥayḍ, she must act according to the rules that were mentioned for a ḥāʾiḍ. In the event that afterwards, she realises that it was not ḥayḍ – for example, her bleeding stops in less than three days – she must make up the ritual acts of worship that she did not perform [when she considered her bleeding to be ḥayḍ].

Ruling 471. If a woman with a habit of time and duration experiences bleeding on all the days of her habit and a few days before and after her habit, and if the total number of days does not exceed ten, then the bleeding on all of those days is considered to be ḥayḍ. If the number of days exceeds ten, only the bleeding during her habit is ḥayḍ and the bleeding before and after that is istiḥāḍah, and she must make up the ritual acts of worship that she did not perform before and after her habit.

If a woman experiences bleeding on all the days of her habit and a few days before her habit, and if the total number of days does not exceed ten, then the bleeding on all of those days is considered to be ḥayḍ. If it exceeds ten days, only the bleeding on the days of her habit is considered to be ḥayḍ – even if the bleeding does not have the attributes of ḥayḍ and the days before her habit had the attributes of ḥayḍ – and the bleeding before her habit is considered to be istiḥāḍah. In the event that she did not perform ritual acts of worship on those days, she must make them up.

If a woman experiences bleeding on all the days of her habit and a few days after her habit, and if the total number of days does not exceed ten, then the bleeding on all of those days is considered to be ḥayḍ. If the total is more than ten days, only the bleeding on the days of her habit is considered to be ḥayḍ and the rest is considered to be istiḥāḍah.

Ruling 472. If a woman with a habit of time and duration experiences bleeding on some of the days of her habit and a few days before her habit, and if the total number of days does not exceed ten, then the bleeding on all those days is considered to be ḥayḍ. If the bleeding exceeds ten days, the bleeding on the days of her habit plus the few days before that – which total the number of days of her habit – is ḥayḍ, and the bleeding on the first few days is considered to be istiḥāḍah. If she experiences bleeding on some days of her habit and a few days after her habit, and the total number of days does not exceed ten, then the bleeding on all the days is ḥayḍ. If it exceeds ten days, the bleeding on the days of her habit plus a few days after that – which total the number of days of her habit – is ḥayḍ, and the bleeding on the remaining days is considered to be istiḥāḍah.

Ruling 473. If a woman with a habit experiences bleeding for three or more days and after that her bleeding stops, and if she then experiences bleeding again and the gap between the two bleedings is less than ten days, and if all the days on which she experiences bleeding plus the days on which her bleeding stops total more than ten – for example, she experiences bleeding for five days, then her bleeding stops for five days, and then she experiences bleeding again for five days – in such a case, there are a few scenarios to consider:

1. all or some of the woman’s first bleeding was on the days of her habit and her second bleeding was not on the days of her habit; in this case, she must consider all of her first bleeding to be ḥayḍ and her second bleeding to be istiḥāḍah. However, if her second bleeding has the attributes of ḥayḍ, she must add together the number of days of her first bleeding and the number of days on which her bleeding stopped after her first bleeding; then, to that figure, she must add a number of days from her second bleeding such that the total number of days does not exceed ten. Having done this, she must consider her first bleeding and the bleeding on the days she added from her second bleeding to be ḥayḍ and the rest to be istiḥāḍah. For example, if she experiences bleeding for three days, then her bleeding stops for three days, and then she experiences bleeding again for five days and her second bleeding has the attributes of ḥayḍ, the first three days plus four days from her second bleeding is ḥayḍ. For the days in between when her bleeding stops, she must, based on obligatory precaution, perform the obligatory acts that are required of a non-ḥāʾiḍ and refrain from doing the things that are unlawful for a ḥāʾiḍ;

2. the woman’s first bleeding is not on the days of her habit, and all or some of her second bleeding is on the days of her habit. In this case, she must consider all of her second bleeding to be ḥayḍ and her first bleeding to be istiḥāḍah;

3. some of the woman’s first and second bleeding is on the days of her habit, and her first bleeding that was on the days of her habit lasts for not less than three days, and the number of days on which her bleeding stops in between and some of the days of her second bleeding that was also on the days of her habit does not exceed ten. In this case, both bleedings are ḥayḍ. The obligatory precaution is that on the days that her bleeding stops in between, she must do the things that are obligatory for a non-ḥāʾiḍ and refrain from doing the things that are unlawful for a ḥāʾiḍ. The days of the second bleeding after the days of her habit are considered to be istiḥāḍah. As for the amount of the first bleeding that she experiences before the days of her habit, in the event that it can commonly be said that her habit has moved forward, it is ruled to be ḥayḍ unless considering it as ḥayḍ results in some or all the days of her second bleeding that was also on the days of her habit to exceed ten days, in which case it is ruled to be istiḥāḍah. For example, if a woman’s habit is from the third of the month to the tenth, and she experiences bleeding from the first to the sixth in one month, then her bleeding stops on two days, and then she experiences bleeding again until the fifteenth, in such a case, the bleeding that she experiences from the first to the tenth is ḥayḍ, and the bleeding that she experiences from the eleventh to the fifteenth is istiḥāḍah;

4. the woman experiences some of her first and second bleeding on the days of her habit but the part of her first bleeding that she experiences on the days of her habit is less than three days. In this case, she must consider the last three days of her first bleeding to be ḥayḍ. Similarly, her second bleeding – which together with the first three days and the days on which her bleeding stops in between total ten days – must also be considered to be ḥayḍ, and whatever is more than that is istiḥāḍah. If the number of days on which her bleeding stops is seven, all of her second bleeding is istiḥāḍah. In some cases, she must consider all of her first bleeding to be ḥayḍ, and this is when two conditions are fulfilled:

a. all of her first bleeding has moved ahead to such an extent that her habit can be said to have moved forward;

b. if all of her first bleeding were to be considered ḥayḍ, the number of days of her second bleeding that she experienced on the days of her habit would not exceed ten. For example, if the habit of a woman was from the third of the month to the tenth and she now experiences bleeding from the first of the month until the end of the fourth day, then her bleeding stops for two days, and then she experiences bleeding again until the fifteenth, in such a case, all of her first bleeding is ḥayḍ. Similarly, the second bleeding until the end of the tenth day is ḥayḍ.

Ruling 474. If a woman with a habit of time and duration does not experience bleeding on the days of her habit, and at another time she experiences bleeding for the same number of days as her ḥayḍ, she must consider it to be ḥayḍ irrespective of whether she experienced it before the time of her habit or after it.

Ruling 475. If a woman with a habit of time and duration experiences bleeding on the days of her habit for three days or more, and the number of days are more or less than the days of her habit, and if after her bleeding stops she experiences bleeding again on the same number of days as her habit, then in such a case, there are a few scenarios to consider:

1. the total number of days of the two bleedings plus the number of days when her bleeding stops in between does not exceed ten. In this case, the two bleedings together are considered to be one ḥayḍ;

2. the number of days that her bleeding stops in between the two bleedings exceeds ten. In this case, each of the two bleedings is considered to be a separate ḥayḍ;

3. the number of days that her bleeding stops in between the two bleedings is less than ten, and the total of the two bleedings plus the days on which her bleeding stops in between is more than ten. In this case, the first bleeding must be considered to be ḥayḍ and the second bleeding istiḥāḍah.

Ruling 476. If a woman with a habit of time and duration experiences bleeding for more than ten days, the bleeding that she experiences on the days of her habit – even if it does not have the attributes of ḥayḍ – is ḥayḍ; and the bleeding that she experiences after the days of her habit – even if it has the attributes of ḥayḍ – is istiḥāḍah. For example, if a woman whose habit is from the first of the month to the seventh experiences bleeding from the first of the month to the twelfth, the first seven days are ḥayḍ and the next five days are istiḥāḍah.