Points derived from the ḥadith

1. Women taken captive from the unbelievers during Muslim combat immediately become slaves by virtue of the capture and the Muslims’ control over them; they fall under the right-hand possession (milk al-yamīn) of the one who captured them or of whoever receives them when the spoils are divided.
2. Whoever acquires a slave woman—whether through capture, purchase, gift, inheritance, or any other means—may not have intercourse with her, or derive any sexual pleasure from her, whether by kissing, fondling beneath the waist, or the like, until her womb has been cleared through istibrāʾ (uterine clearance). This applies even if her previous owner was a minor, a woman, an impotent man, and so on.
3. Istibrāʾ means ascertaining that the womb is empty by one of the following methods:
   – If the slave woman is pregnant, by her delivering the entire pregnancy.
   – If she menstruates, by the completion of one full menstrual cycle.
   – If she is past the age of menses or has not yet begun to menstruate, by one month elapsing from the time she entered his ownership.
4. In this ḥadith the Prophet ﷺ forbade intercourse with a captive woman until it is known that her womb is clear—if she is pregnant, by her giving birth; if she is not pregnant, by her experiencing one menstrual period. This accords with the earlier report found in some of the Sunan collections in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “It is not lawful for a man who believes in Allah and the Last Day to irrigate another man’s crop with his own water.” The fetus in her womb is that other man’s crop, and intercourse with the mother would be tantamount to irrigating it.

Scholarly disagreement
The majority of scholars—including the three imams, Abū Ḥanīfa, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad—maintain, as stated above, that it is forbidden to have intercourse with a captive woman or any other concubine under right-hand possession until it is confirmed that her womb is empty by one of the aforementioned methods. They adduce the general wording of the relevant aḥādīth and draw an analogy with the waiting period (ʿidda): although the womb’s innocence may already be known, the ʿidda remains obligatory, and istibrāʾ is the ʿidda prescribed for a slave woman; hence it is required even when the womb is assumed to be clear.