Abū Hanīfah and Ahmad, according to the stronger of the two reports from him. Indeed, Abū Hanīfah did not take the distinction between types of blood into account, just as Mālik did not take the usual menstrual pattern into account. Al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad, however, consider both; the disagreement concerns which takes precedence.

As for the second hadith, it does not state that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, instructed her to bathe for every prayer. Rather, he instructed her to bathe without specifying this, and she herself would bathe for every prayer. Bathing for every prayer is recommended, not obligatory, according to the four imams and others, provided that she refrains from prayer for the known days of her menstrual period, then bathes as a woman whose menstruation has ended would bathe, and thereafter prays and fasts despite this non-menstrual bleeding. What is obligatory, according to the majority—including Abū Hanīfah, al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad—is that she perform ablution for each of the five prayers.

Mālik, however, holds that neither ablution nor a full ritual bath is required of her on account of this bleeding, since, in his view, non-menstrual bleeding does not invalidate ablution, nor do other unusual discharges. The majority cite as evidence the report in al-Tirmidhī and elsewhere:

“The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, instructed the woman experiencing non-menstrual bleeding to perform ablution for every prayer.”

The woman in the second hadith was not experiencing menstruation for the first time, although some people have supposed this, for she was an elderly woman. Rather, they understood her case as that of a woman who had forgotten her usual menstrual pattern. The Sunan collections state:

“She was instructed to treat six or seven days as her menstrual period.”

This also appears in the hadith of Salamah bint Sahl. It was on this that Imam