Daily Bangladesh's religion section has set out the Islamic ruling on prayer during nifas, the bleeding that follows childbirth, drawing on the Quran, hadith and fiqh. In the Hanafi school, it says, the longest period of nifas is 40 days, but not every woman has to wait for the full 40 days.
Verse 222 of Surah Al-Baqarah sets out rules of purity during menstruation but does not state a period for nifas; the rules on postnatal bleeding come mainly from hadith and fiqh. Umm Salamah, mother of the believers, reported that in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), women with nifas waited 40 days or 40 nights after giving birth. The hadith is in Sunan Abu Dawud (311), and the hadith scholar al-Albani graded it hasan sahih.
The piece explains what to do if bleeding stops before 40 days. If it stops completely 10, 15 or 20 days after the birth, the woman must bathe and begin praying, and may not wait for the 40 days to pass. If it stops and then resumes within the 40 days, in the Hanafi school it may still count as nifas.
Women do not pray during nifas, and the prayers missed in that time do not have to be made up, which the piece describes as a special ease in Islam for women. Fasts missed in Ramadan because of nifas, however, must be made up later, so the rules for making up prayer and fasting differ.
If bleeding continues beyond 40 days, the Hanafi ruling is generally to bathe and resume prayer. Where a woman has given birth before and has an established pattern of nifas, the reckoning may differ, and the piece advises consulting an experienced scholar or mufti about one's own circumstances.
Source: Daily Bangladesh
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