Dāwūd also reports from ʿĀʾishah:
“The Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said to me while I was menstruating, ‘Bare your thigh.’ I uncovered it, and he rested his cheek and chest upon my thigh. I leaned over him until he grew warm, for the cold had been causing him pain.”
The point of ambiguity in the verse on menstruation lies in the Almighty’s words,
“Say: It is a hurt; therefore keep away from women during menstruation” (al-Baqarah 2:222).
The debate is whether the verse should be taken in its full generality—except where delimited by other evidence—or whether it is an example of a general wording intended for a specific case, as suggested by the clause “Say: It is a hurt,” for the hurt exists only at the place of the blood.
Accordingly, those who insist that a text must be kept to its general sense until restricted by proof exclude whatever lies above the waist-wrapper on the basis of the Sunnah, since, as the legal theorists agree, the Sunnah may particularise the Qur’an. Others, who view the verse as a general expression meant for a specific intent, give it precedence over the reports that forbid contact below the waist-wrapper and bolster their stance with counter-reports that permit it.
Some scholars have attempted to reconcile the two sets of reports with the verse’s rationale—that menstruation is “a hurt.” They treat the ḥadīths forbidding touch below the waist-wrapper as expressing mere reprehensibility, while the permissive ḥadīths and the implication of the verse indicate legality. They support this reading with Prophetic evidence that no part of a menstruating woman’s body is impure save the place of the blood. Among such evidence is the narration in which the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—asked ʿĀʾishah to hand him the small prayer-mat while she was menstruating. When she replied, “I am menstruating,” he said, “Your menstruation is not in your hand.” Likewise, she used to comb his hair while she was menstruating, and he declared, “The believer is never impure.”
Issue Two
The jurists have differed concerning intercourse with a menstruating wife after the bleeding ceases but before she performs the ritual bath. Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and the majority hold that it is impermissible until she bathes. Abū Ḥanīfah and his colleagues, however, deem it permissible once she has become pure for the maximum span of menstruation, which, in his view