What the scriptural text indicates is that a waiting period to establish freedom from pregnancy is prescribed whenever pregnancy is possible. For he commanded this waiting period for pregnant and menstruating women among the female captives whose condition was unknown. When it is known that the womb is free from pregnancy, however, such a waiting period serves no purpose. The report of Ibn Shihāb in al-Muwattaʾ is mursal: it is not linked to the Prophet through a Companion.

The Quran prescribes a waiting period of three cycles only for divorced women—not for a woman separated from her husband by means other than divorce, nor for a woman who has had intercourse under a mistaken assumption of its lawfulness, nor for a woman with whom illicit intercourse has occurred. Since the Sunnah establishes that a woman divorced by khulʿ (divorce in return for compensation) need only wait for one menstrual period, which establishes freedom from pregnancy, this applies with even greater force to a woman who has had intercourse under a mistaken assumption of lawfulness or one with whom illicit intercourse has occurred. This accords with one of the two positions reported from Ahmad concerning both a woman divorced by khulʿ and a woman with whom illicit intercourse has occurred. There is less reason to require a full waiting period of a woman who has had intercourse under a mistaken assumption of lawfulness than of either of those two women. Whichever of them her case is treated as analogous to, she need only wait for one menstrual period, as one of the two juristic views holds.

Reasoned consideration also supports this position. A divorced woman’s husband has the right to take her back, while she is entitled to a compensatory gift upon divorce, as well as maintenance and accommodation during the waiting period. It is therefore fitting that she should be commanded to wait for three cycles in recognition of her husband’s right, allowing him to take her back during that time. He thus has a right served by the length of the waiting period, as Allah Most High says: “When you marry believing women and then divorce them