touching a menstruating woman is likewise permissible for the person in retreat and for anyone else, for her body is pure, her perspiration is pure, and nothing is impure except the very place of bleeding, namely the private part.
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Iʿtikāf does not bar a person from combing, grooming, or washing his hair, nor from any other form of bodily or clothing hygiene.
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A menstruating woman may not remain inside the mosque, lest she soil it and because she is in a state of major ritual impurity that minor ablution cannot remove.
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Islam’s attitude toward the menstruating woman is one of cleanliness, respect, and honor. It deems the site of menstruation—the private part—a source of harm and impurity, as Allah says: “They ask you about menstruation. Say, ‘It is a discomfort.’” (Q 2:222). This is because it is the very outlet and is close to filth and impurity. For that reason Muslims avoid the practice of certain Christians who do not refrain from intercourse with a woman during her menses.
At the same time Islam considers the rest of her body pure and clean and regards the menstruating woman herself as respected and honored. Thus it rejects the undue severity of the Jews, which has no sound basis. Islam therefore stands as a balanced, superior way between these two extremes.
Scholarly disagreement
The jurists differed over whether a man’s touching a woman directly, without a barrier and without sexual desire, nullifies ablution.
Imam al-Shāfiʿī and his followers held that it does nullify ablution, citing the verse: “…or you have touched women…” (Q 4:43), which they understand in its literal sense of physical contact.
The other three Imams maintained that it does not nullify ablution. They relied on the report recorded by al-Bukhārī (485) and Muslim (793) in which ʿĀʾishah said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ would pray while I lay stretched out before him as a bier is laid; when he wished to prostrate, he would nudge me and I would draw in my legs,” and on the report transmitted by Muslim (751) and al-Nasaʾī (169) in which she said: “I lost sight of the Prophet ﷺ—"