Another divine wisdom is to exalt the marriage bond itself, to affirm its sanctity, and to honor the right of the husband who pronounced the divorce.
The waiting period also safeguards the rights of any fetus, should the separated woman be pregnant.
In short, the ʿiddah serves as a protective boundary around the previous marriage.
Who must observe ʿiddah? It is incumbent upon every woman who parts from her husband through divorce, khulʿ, judicial dissolution, or his death—on condition that the husband had already been alone with her in full privacy while she consented, that he knew her identity, and that he was physically able to consummate the marriage. This ruling applies whether the wife is free or enslaved, mature or a minor of an age at which intercourse is ordinarily possible.
By contrast, a woman whose husband separates from her while he is still alive—whether by divorce or any other means—before consummation owes no waiting period. Allah the Exalted says, “O you who believe! When you marry believing women and then divorce them before you have touched them, you owe them no waiting period that you should count” (Qur’an 33:49). That is, you do not have to reckon any interval of menstrual cycles or months. The phrase “before you have touched them” means before intercourse. The noble verse thus proves that there is no ʿiddah for a woman divorced prior to consummation, and there is no scholarly disagreement on this point. The verse addresses “believing women” merely by way of predominance; by consensus, the same rule applies to wives from the People of the Book.
If the separation results from the husband’s death, the woman must in every case observe a waiting period—whether he died before or after consummation—because of the general wording of Allah’s statement, “And those of you who die and leave wives behind must ensure that their wives wait by themselves for four months and ten days” (Qur’an 2:234). No text restricts the scope of this verse.
To sum up, the women who observe ʿiddah fall into six categories:
- A pregnant woman;
- A widow who is not pregnant by the deceased husband;
- A non-pregnant woman who menstruates and is separated during the husband’s lifetime;
- A non-menstruating woman—whether because of youth or menopause—who is separated