and its nullity as well, for the marriage contract is merely a means to sexual intercourse, and means are governed by the rulings of their ends.
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The scholars have differed concerning an adulteress who is not pregnant: must she observe a full waiting period (ʿidda), or is one menstrual cycle of clearance (istibrāʾ) sufficient?
• The majority hold that no complete ʿidda is required; one menstrual period suffices. This is the position of the three Imams and is also reported from Aḥmad.
• Mālik, however, requires three menstrual cycles, and those who follow this view cite the ḥadith, “The child belongs to the marital bed,” though the relevance of this proof is not evident.
• The well-known view in the Ḥanbalī school, selected by Imām Aḥmad, is that a full ʿidda is obligatory, treating her like a divorcée. This opinion is shared by al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī, and was preferred by Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn, Ibn al-Qayyim, and our teacher ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī (may Allah have mercy on them).
The evidence for this view is the general texts that impose a waiting period after intercourse, for intercourse occupies the womb; therefore an ʿidda is required, just as in intercourse by mistake or under a doubtful assumption of permissibility. -
Faith in Allah and the Last Day, by its very nature, restrains a Muslim from committing sins. When a person proceeds to sin, his faith has left him at that moment, as the Prophet ﷺ said: “The adulterer does not commit adultery while he is a believer.”
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The ḥadith likens a child in its mother’s womb to a crop, a parallel to the verse, “Your wives are a tilth for you; so approach your tilth as you wish” (al-Baqarah 2:223). The resemblance lies in the exclusive right over it and benefiting from its yield.
Benefit:
Dr. Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Bār writes in his book The Creation of Man between Medicine and the Qur’an: “Each month a woman releases a single ovum, awaiting its companion, the sperm cell. When the decreed moment arrives and a sperm fertilises the ovum, the two gametes unite; the cell then closes its gate so that no other sperm may enter, and these two fused gametes…"