and in another wording (B: 327; 4/226): “One of the Prophet’s wives who was suffering from istiḥāḍah (non-menstrual bleeding) performed iʿtikāf with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. She would notice red and yellow discharge, and we would sometimes place a basin beneath her while she was praying.”
Ayyūb narrated from Muḥammad, from Umm ʿAṭiyyah, who said, “We did not consider the brownish discharge (kudrah) or the yellowish discharge (ṣufrah) to be of any consequence.” (B: 338; D: 50; N: 66; Mi: 214; Maj: 222; Mus: 174)
Abū Dāwūd, Mi: 215, Maj: 222, and Muslim also transmitted it through the chain of Ḥammād ibn Salamah—from Qatādah—from Umm al-Hudhail—from her—with the additional phrase, “after the state of ritual purity.” Muslim ruled: “Authentic according to the criteria of both of them.”
Umm al-Hudhail is Ḥafṣah bint Sīrīn, as al-Dhahabī likewise affirmed. In reality, the report meets only Muslim’s criteria because of Ḥammād ibn Salamah; the first isnād, however, satisfies the criteria of both of them, so faulting al-Bukhārī on this point is unwarranted.
Al-Dārimī also narrated from Ibn Sīrīn that he said, “They saw no problem in brownish or yellowish discharge.”
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When menstrual blood is black and recognizable, every woman who sees and distinguishes it is menstruating; otherwise, she is in a state of istiḥāḍah.
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A woman who cannot differentiate her blood because of its abundance and continuous flow must refer back to her established habit—the days she previously recognized as menses.
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If she neither knows her habitual days nor can distinguish the blood, she should adopt the period that is most common among women for menstruation.