Women's Issues

Q: What is the Islamic ruling on vaginal discharge that females commonly experience? Many ladies are confused about this issue.

Q: Can a woman go to Pakistan to do Islamic studies? Father wants to go with her and leave her alone and come back.

Q: After fajr I try not to sleep but devote myself to Allah. But what can be done when a woman has haidh? Can she be reading at least translation of Quran? If yes, does she have to be in hijab? I know in hijab is better as respect to Allah, then company of malaikah, but sometimes I want to do it without hijab not to catch attention of my family?

Q: Husband of a woman is missing since a few months. Later she came to know that he has been killed but there is no proof that he has being killed. Will this woman have to sit in iddat upon merely hearing the news of her husband's death when she is not sure about that?

Q: We would like your advice on the following: My wife had a very difficult birth and after that she had to have a ceaser and a hysterectomy, so we wont be able to have any more kids. This was our first child and she is a girl. A family member suggested that if she breastfeeds her nephew who is a year old (Her brothers first child) then at least our daughter will have company when she is older and she will have an older brother to look up to and she can still keep that relationship after she reaches puberty since he will be her step brother. I have a few concerns regarding that like, what if they want to get married, and we also stay very far away from each other (720km) so it seems a bit senseless doing that. Also our upbringing styles will be different, we will probably have a more Islamic outlook and they will have a more modern outlook.

Q: Is it correct that even if a woman has different color discharges during her normal days (normal discharges) she still has to wait 10 days of her haidh no matter that around day 6,7,8,9 and 10 she has discharges of the same color as during her normal days?

And second question is, I may have all kind of colors till day 7, end of day 7 only slight white discharges, nothing on day 8, nothing on day 9 and then on day 10 again very slight white discharge. Does it mean that I still wait 10 days for my haidh to finish?

Question 3 is: what if I have no discharges after day 7 or 8, does it mean my haidh is over that day? If yes then i will have to redo salahs i missed waiting till day 10?

Q: I started practising purdah since marriage and encouragement from my wife. As a result my female cousins and their parents have taken offence and caused disunity. I work in a hospital amongst nurses and female colleagues (doctors). How do I correct my home situation? What stance must I take regarding family functions/dawats? How do I behave at work? Am I allowed to speak to staff colleagues regarding patient matters and my other work arrangements? Am I allowed to: 1. Initiate a greeting? 2. Treat female patients? 3. Give feedback to female spouses?

Q: I have a one year five month old son who eats solids and drinks breast milk at times. I want to wean him off from breast feeding as I am three months pregnant but my husband insists that I feed him until he is two years. I know the weaning period is two years but in this case I would just like to know the masala. Do I need to breast feed for full two years or will I be sinful if I wean him off now?

Q: If a woman is nearly finishing her period but still brown colour is coming out, if her husband makes jima' with her, is it permissible or not?

Q: My question is the following: When I embraced Islam I was explained that end of the period is when you see no more reddish discharges. Then after some years I met one young hanafi alim and she told me that there are different ways how to determine end of the period. First is, if during your normal days you have no discharges (yellow or white, etc), then when you have your period you must wait for all discharges to finish, no matter they are reddish or just yellow or white etc, but within 10 days only. Second is, if you during your normal days you have some discharges, then you determine end of your period when you see such discharge, meaning if during normal days you have yellow-white discharges, then as soon as you see the same color of discharges close to you period, let’s say after reddish discharges, then as soon as you see them you can take ghusl and start salah. When I received all this information I choose option number 1, because I thought I had no discharges during normal days. I am quite sure I tried to be very careful about my decision on which way to choose. But now, after a year and a half and am looking back and having doubts. I remember that last Ramadan I was inserting cotton balls inside (I didn’t know at that time that it breaks ones fasting and one alim told me I don’t have to repeat my fasts) before every salah. I am thinking now trying to remember why I was doing it. If I was doing it because I was afraid to have discharges during salah and avoid to make new wudu all the time then does it mean I have to count how many salahs I missed due to wrong determination of the end of my period? Because obviously I missed few days if I was waiting for 10 days to let all discharges pass, even yellow, even white… But the thing is, I am not sure anymore why I was inserting cotton balls, I think it was to prevent discharges of desire to break my wudu, because I am not married and could have them anytime even if one sexual thought passed my mind for a second, I think I was mixing normal lubrication with discharge of desire and was securing myself too much with cotton balls. Having almost all the time cotton balls inside 5 times a day it probably didn’t give me opportunity to see if I had normal discharges during that time so that I could determine end of my period differently. But even here I am not sure, because obviously for night I was taking them out (even though at night usually no discharge appear because simply they don’t flow good in a sleeping position, but still can happen when they are there), so I really don’t remember how often I had the balls inside, the reason and was I determining my end of period correctly or not, I also don’t remember for how long all this happened, years or months. So what should I do know, should I start making qazas for salahs I might have missed? And how to count how many in case I have to do it?