if any discharge from me happened to reach it, he would wash the spot, leave the rest, and pray in it…—end of the narration. Its plain sense is that he would pray in that inner garment provided nothing from her had soiled it.

The shiʿār is the garment a person wears next to the skin, whereas the dithār is what one puts over the regular clothes—it is the outer covering or blanket.

Even clearer than all of this is her other report in which she said:
“I was with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ; we were both covered by our inner garment and had thrown a cloak over it. When dawn broke, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ took the cloak, put it on, went out, led the dawn prayer, and then sat down. A man said, ‘Messenger of Allah, here is a speck of blood.’ The Messenger of Allah ﷺ grasped the part where it was, sent it off wrapped up in the hand of a servant, and said, ‘Wash this, let it dry, then send it back to me.’ I called for my wash-bowl, washed it, dried it, and returned it to him. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ came back at midday and the cloak was on him.”

This, however, is related by Umm Yūnus bint Shaddād, who said, “My mother-in-law, Umm Juhdar al-ʿĀmiriyyah, narrated it to me from ʿĀʾishah.” The standing of both women is unknown, as stated in al-Taqrīb. Al-Dhahabī remarks in al-Mīzān: “I do not know of any woman who has been accused of fabrication or whose ḥadith was abandoned.”

The report was recorded by Abū Dāwūd. It explicitly shows that the Prophet ﷺ prayed in the cloak in which he and his wife had been wrapped until he learned that it bore a spot of blood; he ordered that spot to be washed and did not repeat the prayer on its account, for had he repeated it, the fact would have been transmitted to us. Thus—even if the chain were sound