are allowed to fast another month despite being able to fast, then a menstruating woman, who is forbidden to fast, has even greater reason to fast another month. When she is commanded to make up the fasts, she is commanded to fast only one month; thus, no more is required of her than is required of others. For this reason, if she experiences non-menstrual bleeding, she fasts despite it, since such bleeding cannot be avoided: it may also occur when she is making up her fasts.

Prayer, however, recurs five times every day and night, and menstruation is a bar to prayer. If it were said that she should pray during menstruation because of need, menstruation would never constitute a bar to prayer at all, and fasting and circumambulating the House would possess greater sanctity than prayer. That is not the case. Rather, it is out of reverence for prayer that she does not pray during menstruation, since praying during her periods of purity suffices her without praying during menstruation.

If she is forbidden to circumambulate solely because of the mosque, then clearly there are stronger grounds for permitting this when there is a valid excuse than for permitting her to touch a copy of the Quran when there is a valid excuse. If she had a copy of the Quran and could only safeguard it by touching it—for example, if a thief or a disbeliever wanted to take it, or someone wanted to plunder it or receive it from her as a gift—and she could only prevent him by touching it, she would be permitted to do so. Yet someone in a state of minor ritual impurity may not touch a copy of the Quran, although he may enter the mosque.

It is therefore clear that the sanctity of a copy of the Quran is greater than that of the mosque. If she is permitted to touch a copy of the Quran because of need, then entering the mosque, whose sanctity is less than that of a copy of the Quran, is even more deserving of permission.