for a fee in addition to her maintenance. The verse does not support this. Rather, if the verse applies generally, it indicates that she breastfeeds her child while her husband provides for her, just as he provides for her when she is pregnant. The child’s maintenance is included in the maintenance due to her as a wife, since the child is nourished through the mother’s nourishment. The same applies during breastfeeding: the maintenance provided for the unborn child is the same as that provided for the nursing infant.

On this understanding, there is no contradiction between the two views. Those who restricted the verse to divorced women required a separate provision for maintenance on account of breastfeeding, as mentioned in Surah al-Talāq. This applies specifically to a divorced woman.

As for His words, “Two full years,” it is understood that the year begins at birth and is completed at the corresponding date and time. Thus, if it begins on the tenth of Muharram, it is completed on the tenth of Muharram at the same hour. An unqualified year consists of twelve lunar months, as Allah Most High says:

“Indeed, the number of months with Allah is twelve months in the register of Allah.”

The same applies to the waiting period He mentions: four months and ten days. It begins at the time of death and ends when ten days have elapsed after the corresponding date. Thus, if it begins in the middle of Muharram, it ends on the fifteenth of Muharram. The same applies to stipulated terms in sales and all other periods fixed by religious law or contractual stipulation.

The jurists have two other weak views on this matter. The first is the view of those who say that, if the period begins partway through a month, all the months are calculated by counting days, so that the two years amount to three hundred and sixty days. According to this view, the period increases by twelve days, which is a clear error.