Allah, Exalted is He, says: “They ask you about menstruation. Say, ‘It is a discomfort, so keep away from women during menstruation and do not approach them until they have become pure. Then, when they have purified themselves, go in to them as Allah has commanded you’” (Quran 2:222). The command to keep away means refraining from sexual intercourse.

The Prophet ﷺ said, “Do everything except intercourse,” narrated by all the compilers of the Sunan except al-Bukhari; in another wording, “except sexual intercourse.”

Therefore, a husband may enjoy his menstruating wife in any manner other than vaginal intercourse, such as kissing, touching, and the like.

It is also impermissible for him to divorce her while she is menstruating. Allah the Most High says: “O Prophet, when you divorce women, divorce them at the start of their waiting period” (Quran 65:1), meaning while they are pure and before any intercourse has taken place. The Prophet ﷺ ordered the man who divorced his wife during her menses to take her back and, if he still wished, to divorce her when she was pure.

Purity (ṭuhr) is the cessation of bleeding. Once the blood stops, she is pure and her period has ended; she must perform the ritual bath and may resume whatever was forbidden to her because of menstruation. If, after becoming pure, she notices a yellowish or brown discharge, she disregards it, in accordance with the statement of Umm ʿAṭiyyah (may Allah be pleased with her): “We did not consider the yellow or the brown discharge that appears after the end of menstruation to be of any consequence,” reported by al-Bukhari.