Then, in a later chapter, he cited the following:

Ibn Jurayj said: “I asked ‘Atā’: ‘If a woman from among the polytheists comes to the Muslims, is her husband to be compensated for losing her, in accordance with the words of Allah Most High, “And give them what they have spent”?’

“He replied: ‘No. That applied only between the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and those bound by a treaty.’”

Mujāhid said: “All of this concerned a peace treaty between the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and Quraysh.”

I say: The report of Ibn ‘Abbās contains several points.

First: A woman who emigrates from among those at war with the Muslims is not required to observe the prescribed waiting period; she need only establish that her womb is clear by observing a single menstrual period. This is one of the two scholarly positions on this question, because the prescribed waiting period involves a right belonging to the husband, as Allah Most High says:

“Then you have no waiting period to count for them.”

For this reason, we have held that prescribed waiting periods cannot run concurrently. By embracing Islam and emigrating, this woman has gained freedom over her own person, just as a slave gains freedom over his own person by embracing Islam and emigrating. Her husband therefore has no right over her. Nevertheless, she must establish that her womb is clear, just as an emancipated slave woman must. This may lend support to the view that a single menstrual period suffices for a woman who obtains release from marriage through khul‘, since each woman has freed herself from the marital bond.

Second: If her husband emigrates before she remarries, she is restored to him, even if she has already menstruated. Yet, after this, al-Bukhārī narrates from Khālid, from ‘Ikrima, from Ibn ‘Abbās: “If a Christian woman embraces Islam even an hour before her husband, she becomes unlawful to him.”

What Ibn ‘Abbās mentioned concerning the emigrant woman accords with the well-known report that “Zaynab, the daughter of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was restored to Abū al-‘Ās ibn al-Rabī‘ under the original marriage contract.” In my writings on jurisprudence, I have recorded reports and explicit statements on this matter from Imam Ahmad and others.