blood for more than forty, sixty, or seventy days and it then stopped, it would be postpartum bleeding. If, however, it continued without interruption, it would be abnormal bleeding. In that case, the limit is forty days, since this is the upper end of the usual duration, as indicated by the transmitted reports. Nor is there an age limit beyond which a woman cannot menstruate. If, after sixty or seventy years of age, her familiar uterine bleeding increased, it would be menstruation.

The loss of expectation mentioned in His words,

“And those who no longer expect menstruation,”

does not mean reaching a particular age. [For] (1) if it meant reaching a particular age, Allah and His Messenger would have specified it. Rather, it means that the woman herself no longer expects to menstruate. If her bleeding stops and she no longer expects it to return, she has ceased to expect menstruation, even if she is forty years old. If she then waits and the bleeding returns, it becomes clear that she had not ceased menstruating permanently. If it returns after the three months, her case is like that of other women whose menstruation returns after they had ceased to expect it, or whose menstrual status is uncertain.

Anyone who does not understand this cessation of expectation in this way adopts an inconsistent position if he defines it by age. His position is likewise inconsistent if he defines it neither by age nor by the woman’s loss of hope that she will menstruate. Nor can it be known simply from the person herself.

Since postpartum bleeding has no fixed duration, whether a woman gives birth to twins or more, she remains in the state of postpartum bleeding as long as she continues to see blood. Whatever blood she sees from the onset of labour is postpartum bleeding. The rulings governing postpartum bleeding are the same as those governing menstrual bleeding.

Anyone who does not adopt this view, but instead sets the minimum duration of menstruation at one day, one day and one night, or three days, has no reliable basis for doing so. For the reports on this matter transmitted from