Section

If she claims that her waiting period has ended within a timeframe in which it could have ended, or through the delivery of a viable pregnancy, and he denies it, her word is accepted. But if a free woman claims that her waiting period ended through menstruation in fewer than twenty-nine days and an instant, her claim is not heard. If she initiates the matter by saying, “My waiting period has ended,” and he says, “I had taken you back,” or if he initiates it by claiming that he had taken her back and she denies it, then her word is accepted.

His statement: “If she claims that her waiting period has ended within a timeframe in which it could have ended”: that is, if a divorced woman claims that her waiting period has ended within a timeframe in which this is possible. According to the established position of the school, this is twenty-nine days and an instant—the shortest period in which her waiting period could end. This is because the minimum duration of menstruation is a day and a night, while the minimum interval of purity between two menstrual periods is thirteen days. Thus, if we add thirteen days to another thirteen days, the total is twenty-six days, leaving three days: a day and a night for the first menstrual period, a day and a night for the second, and a day and a night for the third. But if she says that her waiting period ended in twenty-eight days, her claim is not heard, because this is impossible. This is the established position of the school.

According to the stronger view, however, as stated earlier, there is no fixed minimum for menstruation or for the interval of purity. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that a woman menstruating for three days on three occasions within a single month is extremely unlikely. Therefore, even if she claims that her waiting period ended within a month, evidence is still required.

His statement: “Or through the delivery of a viable pregnancy”: the viable pregnancy by which the waiting period ends is one in which the human form has become discernible. The human form cannot become discernible in fewer than eighty-one days, based on the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him: “Each of you is gathered in his mother’s womb for forty days as a drop of fluid; then he becomes a clinging clot for a like period; then he becomes a morsel of flesh for a like period” (1),