she reverts to the days of her former habit, and whatever exceeds that is treated as istihada.

• If, upon reaching puberty, a girl’s very first bleeding is continuous, she counts ten days of every month as menstruation and regards the remainder as istihada.

• A woman with istihada, a person suffering urinary incontinence, one with a chronic nose-bleed, or someone whose wound never stops oozing must perform wuduʾ at the beginning of every prayer time. With that single ablution they may perform any obligatory or voluntary prayers within that period. Once the time ends, their wuduʾ is nullified and they must renew it for the next prayer.

Post-Partum Bleeding (nifas)

• Nifas is the blood that flows right after childbirth. Blood seen during pregnancy, or blood that appears while the woman is in labor before the child is delivered, is istihada.

• Nifas has no minimum length; its maximum is forty days. Any bleeding beyond forty days is istihada.

• If the bleeding passes forty days and the woman has previously given birth and established a customary length for nifas, she returns to that habit. If she has no such habit, her nifas is fixed at forty days.

• When twins are born from the same pregnancy, Abu Hanifa and Abu Yusuf hold that nifas begins with the blood that follows the birth of the first child, whereas Muhammad and Zufar say it begins with the blood that follows the second child.