The Time of Personal Purification

As in the Jewish tradition, a woman is considered ritually impure during the menstrual cycle, and she does not pray during that period, because that is a cleansing time. She does not pray during that period; she is absolved from the prayer, and there is nothing — there is no stigma related to it. In fact — because in some of the Orthodox Jewish tradition the man stays away and the woman is kept separate — the Prophet (peace be upon him) knew this, because there were Jews living in Medina, and he wanted to break that tradition; and it is recorded that he recited the Qurʾān while on the lap of his wife ʿĀʾishah while she was menstruating. He was letting people know that there is nothing wrong with the woman during that time. It is just a period of personal purification, and it does not extend beyond her. She can cook; she is allowed to cook during that time. In fact even foreplay is allowed during that time between a male and a female, but the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: avoid what is between the navel and the knee. In other words, that is a time when actual sexual intercourse is prohibited, but the Prophet (peace be upon him) said it is a time when male and female could have sexual foreplay, with the exclusion of intercourse only.

As for the number of repetitions in the ablution: three is encouraged; one is what is obligatory, and three is encouraged. No more than three — it would be discouraged after that. And there is one way to do it. Pretty much all the schools are the same on the wuḍūʾ and on the prayer. In the prayer there is some difference: the Mālikī school prays with the hands at the side, and the Shia also pray with their hands at the side, while the other schools pray with the hands at the chest, or at the waist, and some up higher. So one will get slight variations, but the basic movements are the same. And some will move their finger, to concentrate, in the last part of the prayer, and some will not.