Ruling 497. From the time the first part of a baby’s body comes out of its mother’s womb, the bleeding that a woman experiences for ten days is the bleeding of nifās, on condition that it can be called ‘the bleeding of childbirth’. A woman in the state of nifās is called a ‘nufasāʾ’.

Ruling 498. Blood discharged before the first part of a baby’s body comes out is not nifās.

Ruling 499. It is not necessary for the baby to be fully developed; even if it is born under-developed, as long as its development has passed the stage of an ʿalaqah, which is a clot of blood, and a muḍghah, which is a lump of flesh [embryo], and it is miscarried, then the bleeding of the woman for ten days is considered to be nifās.

Ruling 500. It is possible that the blood of nifās lasts no longer than a moment; however, it is not considered to be nifās if the blood continues for more than ten days.

Ruling 501. Whenever a person doubts whether something is miscarried, or whether the thing that is miscarried is a child, it is not necessary to investigate; and the blood that comes out is not legally ruled to be nifās.

Ruling 502. The things that are obligatory for a ḥāʾiḍ are also obligatory for a nufasāʾ. And based on obligatory precaution, the following are unlawful for a nufasāʾ: entering a mosque (however, merely passing through a mosque is permitted), staying in a mosque, passing through the ‘Two Mosques’ (i.e. Masjid al-Ḥarām and the Mosque of the Prophet (Ṣ)), reciting the verses that have obligatory sajdah,[1] and touching the writing of the Qur’an and the name of Allah the Exalted.

Ruling 503.* A divorce given to a woman who is in the state of nifās is invalid, and having sexual intercourse with a woman who is in the state of nifās is unlawful but it does not require one to give kaffārah.

Ruling 504. If the bleeding of a woman who does not have a habit of duration of ḥayḍ does not exceed ten days after giving birth, then all of it is considered to be nifās. Therefore, if her bleeding stops before ten days, she must perform ghusl and ritual acts of worship. If after that she experiences bleeding on one or more occasions, then in the event that the total number of days on which she experiences bleeding plus the days on which her bleeding stops in between is ten or less, all the blood is considered to be nifās; and on the days that her bleeding stops, she must, as an [obligatory] precaution, perform ritual acts of worship and refrain from doing the things that are unlawful for a nufasāʾ. Therefore, in the event that she had kept any obligatory fasts, she must make them up. Furthermore, if the last bleeding continues for more than ten days, she must consider the first ten days to be nifās and the bleeding after ten days to be istiḥāḍah.

Ruling 505.* If a woman with a habit of duration of ḥayḍ experiences bleeding more than once and the total number of her bleeding exceeds the number of days of her habit and is more than ten days, she must consider the number of days of her habit to be nifās, and based on obligatory precaution, in the days after the number of days of her habit until the tenth day, she must refrain from doing the things that are unlawful for a nufasāʾ and perform the things that are obligatory for a mustaḥāḍah.

Ruling 506. If a woman’s nifās stops and she deems it probable that there is blood inside, she must perform ghusl as a precautionary measure and the ritual acts of worship, or she must perform istibrāʾ; it is not permitted for her to refrain from performing the ritual acts of worship without performing istibrāʾ. The method of performing istibrāʾ was mentioned in Ruling 495.

Ruling 507. If a woman’s nifās exceeds ten days, then in the event that she has a habit of duration for ḥayḍ, the same number of days of her habit is nifās and the rest is istiḥāḍah. If she does not have a habit, it is nifās for the duration of ten days and the rest is istiḥāḍah. If she has forgotten her habit, she must consider her habit to be the highest number of days that she deems probable. Furthermore, the recommended precaution is that a woman with a habit should perform the things required for a mustaḥāḍah and refrain from doing the things that are unlawful for a nufasāʾ, starting from the day after her habit. A woman who does not have a habit should do this after the tenth day until the eighteenth day after childbirth.

Ruling 508. If a woman with a habit of duration for ḥayḍ continuously experiences bleeding for one or more months after giving birth, the same number of days of her habit is nifās and the bleeding for ten days after nifās is istiḥāḍah, even if she has a habit of time and the bleeding is experienced on the days of her habit. For example, if a woman whose habit of ḥayḍ is from the twentieth to the twenty-seventh of every month gives birth on the tenth, and she continuously experiences bleeding for one or more months, the bleeding until the seventeenth day is nifās and the bleeding for ten days from the seventeenth is istiḥāḍah, even if she experiences bleeding on the days of her habit, i.e. from the twentieth to the twenty-seventh. After the passing of ten days, if she has a habit of time and does not experience bleeding on the days of her habit, she must wait for the days of her habit, even if her waiting lasts for one or more months and even if the bleeding during this period has the attributes of ḥayḍ. However, if she does not have a habit of time, she must determine her ḥayḍ by its attributes in the event that this is possible (the method for doing this was mentioned in Ruling 479). If this is not possible – for example, all the bleeding after ten days of nifās is the same, and it continues with the same attributes for one or more months – then in every month, she must consider the ḥayḍ of her close relatives to be her ḥayḍ, as per the details mentioned in Ruling 479. If this is not possible either, she must choose a figure that she considers appropriate for herself, the explanation of which was given in Ruling 481.

Ruling 509. If a woman who does not have a habit of duration for ḥayḍ experiences bleeding for one or more months after giving birth, the bleeding on the first ten days is nifās and the bleeding on the second ten days is istiḥāḍah. As for the bleeding after that, it is possible that it could be ḥayḍ or istiḥāḍah; to determine whether it is ḥayḍ or not, she must act according to the instructions mentioned in the previous ruling.