and favoring the view that they mean menstrual periods. This chapter includes sections on the waiting periods of slave women, women past menopause, and women who have not menstruated; waiting periods following a husband’s death, divorce, and divorce in exchange for compensation; a widow’s observance of her waiting period in the home where her husband died; the Messenger of Allah’s ruling (peace and blessings be upon him) concerning mourning during the waiting period; and the practices a woman in mourning must avoid. He concluded this chapter with a lengthy section on the Messenger of Allah’s ruling (peace and blessings be upon him) concerning the waiting period for establishing that the womb is free of pregnancy (6/ 371 - 418).
The book’s final chapter concerns his rulings (peace and blessings be upon him) on sales. He began by discussing things whose sale is forbidden, such as carrion, pigs, and idols. He then discussed his rulings (peace and blessings be upon him) concerning the price received for a dog or cat, a prostitute’s earnings, a soothsayer’s fee, and a cupper’s wages; then his ruling (peace and blessings be upon him) concerning the sale of a male animal’s semen and mating services, the prohibition of selling water shared by the public, and the prohibition of selling what one does not possess.
He concluded this section with a discussion of sales involving uncertainty, one example being the sale of milk still in the udder. At its close, he discussed the sale of wool still on an animal’s back and explained how it differs from milk still in the udder, saying: “With milk still in the udder, what belongs to the buyer quickly becomes mixed with what belongs to the seller, for milk is produced rapidly: whenever the animal is milked, more milk flows, unlike wool. And Allah knows best and is most wise.”
The book ends with this section, without a clear conclusion, leaving the reader with the impression that something has been lost from its end and that the manuscripts which have reached us may be incomplete. In fact, the manuscripts available to us sometimes differ from one another, but they all agree on the ending. Some were collated against a copy read to the author, as mentioned earlier. We therefore do not know why the author—may Allah have mercy on him—did not close his book with a fitting statement indicating its completion.