Expiation for Intercourse with a Menstruating Wife: An Islamic Perspective

Understanding the Prohibition and Expiation Related to Intercourse During Menstruation

Is there an expiation for the one who has intercourse with his menstruating wife? 

If he has intercourse with her intentionally, knowingly that she is on her menses and knowing of the prohibition choosing to do it then he has perpetrated a major sin making repentance obligatory upon him…and those that state the obligation of an expiation they clung onto the Hadith of Ibn Abbās which is Marfū’ ‘Whoever has intercourse with his wife while she is menstruating then let him give a dīnār or half in Sadaqah, rather it is a weak Hadith;

An-Nawawi said weak with the agreement of the Huffādh so what is correct is that there is no expiation upon him.

🔹Our Shaykh may Allāh preserve him said: “Nothing remains except repentance to Allāh and seeking forgiveness from this major sin, what’s left is Sadaqah, in it is good even if a person told tales or backbited he is encouraged to repent and to do good, verily the good deeds rid of the bad deeds, from this angle there is nothing preventing it.”

🔹 The Prophet ﷺ did this for ease and opposing the Jews and as a mercy to the women making her feel good from that harshness and toughness which was with the Jews, verily the Jews if a woman menstruated amongst them, they did not eat with her, nor come near to her, she becomes in isolation the days of her period.

🔹And these Hadiths are in clarification of the leniency of islām to a person.

🔹And in this is opposing of the Messenger ﷺ to the Jews in purification and in fasting and praying and the pilgrimage and other that that.

🔹And when the Christians mixed with the Muslims in Shām, Shaykh ul-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah may Allāh have mercy on him embarked upon authorings, and distinction, not resembling them; he authored the book ‘Iqtidhā As-Sirāt ul-Mustaqīm limukhālafati Ashāb il-Jahīm’ when he saw the Muslims imitating them.

Transcribed to Arabic and summarised by:

Abu Abdirrahmān Hamūd Ath-Thawābi 

may Allāh reward him with good

on the 17th, Jumāda Al-Ākhir, 1441H

Translated by: 

Abu ‘Abdillāh ‘Omar bin Yahya Al-‘Akawi

#Menstruation #QA #HusbandWife