that the post-partum woman refrains from prayer for forty days, unless she becomes pure before that, in which case she performs the ritual bath and prays. If she sees blood after the forty days, most scholars say that she should not abandon the prayer thereafter. This is the opinion of the majority of jurists, and it is the view of Sufyān al-Thawrī, Ibn al-Mubārak, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, and Isḥāq.”

I say: What al-Tirmidhī has related from al-Shāfiʿī is indeed one of his opinions, yet the view most commonly cited in the works of his school is that the maximum length of nifās is sixty days. Al-Tirmidhī also reported this opinion from ʿAtāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ and al-Shaʿbī.

The scholars have differed over the minimum duration of nifās. The view closest to what is correct is that no lower limit has been set, because of the Prophet’s wording mentioned earlier: “If she attains purity before that….” This is the position of al-Shāfiʿī and Muḥammad, and it is the choice of Shaykh al-Islām (16 in al-Ikhtiyārāt) and of Ibn Ḥazm (2/203).

Know that the rulings of nifās are identical to those of menstruation in everything that is lawful, unlawful, disliked, or recommended. Al-Shawkānī (248), citing al-Baḥr, transmitted a consensus on this point. The scholars are unanimously agreed that a menstruating woman does not pray, and the same applies to the post-partum woman.