Chapter on the Waiting Period (ʿidda)

A woman who is divorced before her husband has consummated the marriage with her—no sexual contact having taken place—has no ʿidda to observe, save in the event that her husband dies; in that case she must in every circumstance fulfil the widow’s waiting period.

When a man has consummated the marriage with his free wife and then divorces her while she is a woman who menstruates, her ʿidda is three quruʾ. The quruʾ are the intervals of purity; a qurʾ is the span of purity between two menstrual periods. This ruling applies equally to a free Muslim woman and to a free woman from the People of the Book.

By contrast, a slave-wife, an umm walad (a concubine who has borne her master a child), or any woman who still has a share of servitude observes a waiting period of two quruʾ after her husband divorces her, whether the husband is free or enslaved.

If a man pronounces divorce upon his wife at the very end of a qurʾ, that qurʾ is counted for her, because what is meant by qurʾ is the transition from purity into menstrual blood. Thus, when a free woman actually begins to bleed in her third menstruation, the separation is final; for a slave woman it becomes final when she begins to bleed in her second menstruation.

Should a free woman be divorced while she is menstruating, that menstruation does not count toward her waiting period. If her husband does not take her back and her ʿidda continues, it is not complete until she has entered the bleeding of a fourth menstruation.

If the divorced free woman does not menstruate—whether because she is too young or has reached menopause—her waiting period is three lunar months beginning from the day of divorce. If he divorces her partway through a day, two opinions are related from Malik: in one she disregards that fraction of the day and begins her ʿidda the following day; in the other she includes the elapsed portion of the day and waits until the same hour three months later.