They say that postponing clarification beyond the moment of need is impermissible; had it been obligatory for her to purify herself before every prayer, the Prophet would certainly have informed her of that. It is unlikely that anyone could claim she already knew this while she was, in fact, unaware of the difference between istiḥāḍah and menstruation.

As for his—peace and blessings be upon him—failure to tell her that a bath becomes obligatory once the menstrual bleeding stops, that ruling is implicit in his words, “It is not menstruation,” for it was already well known from his Sunnah that the cessation of menses necessitates a ritual bath. Hence he did not mention it because she was expected to know it. The same cannot be said about the duty to bathe for every prayer—unless one were to claim that this additional ruling had not previously been established and only became so later. This, in turn, touches on the famous question: Is an addition to a ḥadīth tantamount to abrogation or not? In some chains of the ḥadīth of Fāṭimah there does appear a command from the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—for her to perform a bath, and this represents the position of those who follow the methods of preference and of construction.

Those who adopt the method of abrogation argue that the ḥadīth of Asmāʾ bint ʿUmays abrogates the ḥadīth of Umm Ḥabībah, supporting their claim with the report from ʿĀʾishah:

“Sahlah bint Suḥayl suffered from continuous bleeding, and the Messenger of Allah—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him—used to command her to bathe for every prayer. When that became too difficult for her, he instructed her to combine Ẓuhr and ʿAṣr under one bath, Maghrib and ʿIshāʾ under one bath, and to bathe a third time for the Dawn prayer.”

Those who choose the path of reconciliation say: the ḥadīth of Fāṭimah bint Ḥubaysh applies to the woman who can distinguish her days of menstruation from her days of istiḥāḍah, whereas the ḥadīth of Umm Ḥabībah concerns the woman who cannot. She was therefore ordered to bathe at every prayer time as a precaution for the ṣalāh, because when she rises to pray it may be that she has already become pure, in which case a bath would be required for each prayer.

The ḥadīth of Asmāʾ bint ʿUmays, they say, pertains to the woman whose days of menstruation cannot be distinguished from her istiḥāḍah, except that the bleeding sometimes stops; whenever the blood ceases, she must bathe and, with that single bath, perform two prayers.

Yet another group opts for giving the woman a choice between the rulings contained in the ḥadīths of Umm Ḥabībah and Asmāʾ. They base this on the ḥadīth of Ḥamna bint Jaḥsh, in which “the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—gave her a choice.” Some of them say the woman granted this option is the one who does not know the days of her menstruation, while others hold that it applies to every woman experiencing istiḥāḍah, whether she can distinguish or not. This view thus represents a fifth opinion in the matter, though the ḥadīth of Ḥamna bint Jaḥsh in fact limits the choice to praying all the obligatory prayers with one bath or bathing three times during the day and night. As for