— spelled imraʾah on the pattern of tamrah: the mīm is vocalised with a fatḥah, the rāʾ is quiescent, followed by a hamzah with fatḥah. It is the feminine of al-marʾ, “man.” The fatḥah of the hamzah may be transferred to the rāʾ and the hamzah then dropped, yielding marah on the pattern of sunnah.
Lisān al-ʿArab states that the Arabs have three pronunciations for the word: imraʾatuhu, muraʾatuhu, and maratuhu. In the present ḥadith the term “woman” refers to an adult female.
Points derived from the ḥadith:
1 – If the worshipper does not place a sutrah for his prayer—its upper limit being the height of the rear of a saddle and its lower limit the length of a single arrow or even a line drawn on the ground before him—his prayer is invalidated when any one of three things passes in front of him: a woman, a donkey, or a pitch-black dog.
2 – If he does set up a sutrah facing him, then the passage of anything beyond it—even one of those three—does not harm him, because the sutrah demarcates his prayer-space and acts as a protective boundary; whatever passes behind it cannot affect him.
3 – The additional wording reported by Abū Dāwūd and al-Nasāʾī from Ibn ʿAbbās that restricts the ruling to a menstruating woman is not authentic. Had it been sound, it would have qualified Muslim’s unrestricted narration that applies to any woman; but the addition is weak, so the hadith remains absolute.
Ibn al-ʿArabī said: “There is no proof for anyone who confines the ruling to a menstruant, for the report is weak, and a woman’s menstruation is neither in her hand nor her foot.”
4 – The black dog is singled out from all other dogs because it is a devil. The narrator Abū Dharr (may Allah be pleased with him) asked the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): “Messenger of Allah, what distinguishes the black dog from the red, yellow, or white?” He replied, “The black dog is a devil.”
5 – The passage of a devil nullifies the prayer, for that is the effective cause in the case of the black dog.
6 – Allah has granted the devils the ability to assume different forms and appear in whatever shape they