In that same situation, the waiting period (ʿidda) for a divorced slave-woman, or for any woman who still has a share of servitude, is three lunar months, for the womb is not considered clear in less than three months unless menstrual bleeding occurs. Some jurists have maintained that a slave-woman who does not menstruate waits one and a half months, but the first opinion is that of Mālik and his companions.

If a young girl begins to menstruate before those three months are complete, her ʿidda is restarted and thereafter is reckoned by her periods.

A pregnant woman—whether divorced or widowed, slave or free, Muslim or a woman of the People of the Book—always completes her ʿidda by delivering what is in her womb. No pregnant woman has any waiting period other than childbirth; the same ruling applies when she miscarries or expels a clot or lump of flesh, for all are treated alike.

The woman with chronic, non-menstrual bleeding (mustaḥada) waits one full lunar year, whether or not she can distinguish her menstrual blood from her irregular bleeding. According to the authoritative synthesis of Mālik’s school, that year comprises nine months for womb-clearing (istibraʾ) and three months as the statutory waiting period. Another view holds that if her bleeding is intermittent such that she can identify the onset and end of her periods, she waits three quruʾ, and this opinion is stronger in reasoning and more firmly grounded in analogy.

With regard to the woman in doubt whose menses cease and she does not know the cause, it is said that she waits one year from the day her husband divorces her—nine months for istibraʾ and three months as ʿidda. Should she be divorced, then menstruate once or twice, and thereafter her bleeding stops without menopause being the reason, she must again wait a full year counted from the day she became pure from her last period. By the same logic, a free widow in this condition, after the nine months, adds four months and ten days, whereas a slave-woman adds two months and five nights.

Ibn al-Qāsim held that the nine months suffice to clear the womb unless the woman herself suspects pregnancy; if she does, she waits up to five years, which he deemed the longest possible duration of pregnancy. Reports from Mālik place that maximum at four, six, and even seven years, but the four-year report is the soundest from him.

And the waiting period of a free woman