of the uterus and the woman’s reproductive system to their pre-pregnancy condition, a process that normally requires six to eight weeks for the uterus to regain its original size.

Post-natal blood (nifās) issues from the uterus immediately after delivery and can last for as long as forty days, although the usual duration is twenty-four (24) days. The flow may stop for a time and then resume; this is usually the result of minute remnants of the placenta that remain in the uterus, or because the uterus has tilted backward instead of returning to its normal forward position.

The jurists define nifās as the blood relaxed by the uterus at childbirth. Their concern, therefore, is with the blood that the uterus expels, whereas physicians focus on the state of the uterus itself and its return to normal. The two considerations are interconnected: medicine looks to the health of the woman’s reproductive organs—especially the uterus—while jurisprudence is concerned with the blood whose presence prevents prayer, fasting, touching the muṣḥaf (physical copy of the Qur’an), and the like.

Its principal legal rulings may be summarized as follows:

• Nifās is established once anything is delivered in which human form is discernible. It has no minimum or maximum limit: as long as the blood remains it is nifās, and when it ends the woman is considered pure.

• Nifās carries the same rulings as menstruation with respect to prohibitions—such as prayer, fasting, and vaginal intercourse; with respect to obligations—namely the ritual bath (ghusl) and the expiation for intercourse; with respect to exemptions—such as making up missed prayers; with respect to permissions—such as enjoyment short of intercourse; and with respect to what must be made up—namely obligatory fasts.

…

The Book of Purification ends here.