First, it is established through several routes of transmission that ‘Ā’isha held the waiting period to be three periods of purity, and that once a woman enters her third menstrual period, she becomes free to remarry. How, then, could she report that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, ordered her to observe a waiting period of three menstrual periods? From the time of the Companions until today, Muslims have disagreed over whether the waiting period consists of three menstrual periods or three periods of purity. Yet we have never heard of any scholar citing this hadith as evidence that it consists of three menstrual periods. Had this report had any basis from ‘Ā’isha, it would not have escaped all the scholars.

Moreover, this would be a momentous ruling of the Sunnah, which there would be every reason and incentive to learn, for it establishes two important matters: first, that an emancipated woman married to a slave must observe a waiting period of three menstrual periods; and second, that the waiting period consists of three menstrual periods. Furthermore, had this been established, it would have been cited by those who hold that an emancipated woman’s choice to leave her husband constitutes one irrevocable divorce, as Mālik and others maintain. On this view, the waiting period would arise only from divorce. But this, too, is a weak view. The Quran, the Sunnah, and sound reasoning indicate that divorce can only be revocable, and that any irrevocable separation does not count as one of the three divorces—even release from marriage in return for compensation—as has been discussed at length elsewhere.

Our purpose here is to discuss marriage to a woman who has committed unlawful sexual intercourse. This involves two issues. The first concerns her precautionary waiting period, which is her waiting period. We have already mentioned the view of those who say that no inviolability attaches to the semen of a man who commits unlawful sexual intercourse.

The response is that the precautionary waiting period is prescribed not out of regard for the inviolability of the first man’s semen, but for that of the second man’s. A man has no right to acknowledge as his own a child who is not his. The same applies if he does not wait for her precautionary waiting period to end when she has already conceived through unlawful sexual intercourse. Moreover, regarding a man’s acknowledgment of paternity of his child conceived through unlawful sexual intercourse, if the woman was not