3 – This ruling agrees with the position of Imām Aḥmad: a waiting-period remains obligatory for every woman who separates from her husband after a valid or invalid marriage once he has had lawful privacy with her, is fully aware of her, and is able to have intercourse with her—even if some physical or legal impediment exists—regardless of whether the separation came about through divorce, khulʿ (mutual release), or annulment.

4 – Ibn al-Qayyim said: “From the standpoint of legal reasoning, a woman who has obtained khulʿ is no longer subject to any return right on the part of her husband, and requiring her to wait one menstrual cycle accords with the principles of the Sharīʿah. The waiting-period was set at three cycles only to extend the husband’s opportunity to revoke the divorce and reconsider. Therefore, once her womb is shown to be clear, the woman released by khulʿ may remarry just like a captive woman. The same applies to the adulteress and to a woman who was mistakenly treated as a wife. This was the view chosen by the Shaykh, and it is the stronger opinion both in transmitted evidence and rational analysis.”
Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī said: “The correct view is that a woman who was approached under mistaken identity, an adulteress, and others in similar situations are not bound by the marital waiting-period; rather, like female slaves, they are merely to be cleared by a single menstrual cycle. They are not included in the texts concerning the waiting-period of wives, illicit intercourse cannot be analogised to lawful marriage, and the various purposes served by the waiting-period of marriage do not apply here. In unlawful intercourse the sole aim is to ascertain that the womb is free, and that is achieved by one cycle.”

5 – Her statement, “Barīrah was instructed,” counts as a Prophetic ruling, for the one who issued the instruction was the Prophet ﷺ himself.