The overwhelming majority therefore hold that a woman is to be treated exactly like a man with respect to a nocturnal emission, basing themselves on the sound report of Umm Salamah. She related:

“O Messenger of Allah, a woman may see in her dream what a man sees. Must she perform the ritual bath?”
He replied, “Yes, provided she notices the fluid.”

The second situation on which there is likewise unanimous agreement is the bleeding of menstruation—meaning, once it has ceased—because of the Almighty’s words, “They ask you about menstruation. Say: it is a hurt” (al-Baqarah 2:222), and because the Prophet taught ʿĀ’ishah and the other women how to bathe after their menses.

Within this chapter the jurists disagreed, on two well-known fundamental questions.

Issue One
The Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—differed over what exactly makes purification obligatory after sexual intercourse. Some held that the bath is required as soon as the two circumcised parts meet, whether ejaculation occurs or not. This is the view adopted by most jurists of the major centers—Mālik and his followers, al-Shāfiʿī and his followers, and a group of the Ẓāhirīs. Another party of the Ẓāhirīs maintained that ritual cleansing is obligatory only when emission takes place.

Their disagreement stems from the apparently conflicting ḥadīths on the matter, for two rigorously authenticated reports—accepted by both compilers of the Ṣaḥīḥ—have come down to us. (The Qāḍī—may Allah be pleased with him—said: Whenever I say “rigorously authenticated,” I mean a narration transmitted by al-Bukhārī, by Muslim, or by both.)

The first is the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah, in which the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said:

“When a man sits between her four limbs and the circumcised parts touch, the bath becomes obligatory.”

The other is the ḥadīth of ʿUthmān. He was asked, “What about a man who has relations with his wife yet does not ejaculate?” ʿUthmān answered: “He performs ablution just as he does for prayer; I heard this from the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him.”

Scholars have taken two approaches to these two ḥadīths. The first sees one of them as abrogating the other; the second falls back on the point of consensus whenever the two reports cannot be reconciled or one preferred over the other.

The majority consider the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah to abrogate the ḥadīth of ʿUthmān. Among the evidence they cite is the report from Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, who said: “The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—only granted that concession in the early days of Islam, then later ordered us to perform the full bath.” Abū Dāwūd transmitted this.

As for those who hold that the conflict between the two ḥadīths cannot be resolved by reconciliation or by