Q: I have a bleeding disorder. This affects my menstural cycle and I have never had a normal cycle. I know I am supposed to calculate the days that are counted as hayz (menstruation) and istihada based on the days I have as hayz but I have never had a normal one to base it on. I’ve also experienced spotting, which is a small amount of blood everyday, with the same color as hayz and isitihada. And there’s also no difference between the hayz and istihada. So, how do I figure out what counts as hayz and istihada based on not knowing the days counted as hayz and not knowing the difference between the two in color, etc. I’ve never had a normal menstrual cycle without using pills to regulate it. The first time I had a menstrual cycle was the same situation as now. There are no in between days of cleanness because of the bleeding disorder. It is just continous blood flow without anyway to differentiate between types of blood.
A: According to your explanation you had continuous discharge of blood right from the beginning, either in the form of a normal flow or in the form of spotting. This is quite a complicated problem.
Generally in a case like this your haidh (menstruation) should be 10 days and your tuhr or clean period 20 days. Which means that every 20 days you must consider that your haidh has started and stop reading salah etc. However the problem we are facing here is to determine which ten days of the month are haidh and which twenty days are tuhr or the clean period. So what I want you to do is this:
Think back to the time that you had your first period; when, as a young girl you experienced your first menses, was it the beginning of the month, or the middle, or the end of the month?
If you can recall that it was, for example, at the beginning of the month, then count the first 10 days of every month as haidh and the remaining 20 days as tuhr. If you started bleeding in the middle of the month (for example 15th) , then count 10 days from the 15th of every month as haidh and the following 20 days as tuhr. If your bleeding started during the last 10 days of the month, then count 10 days at the end of every month as haidh and the following 20 days as tuhr. For this calculation you can go according to the English months.
Note that the 20 days will be considered ‘clean’ even if you have spotting or regular bleeding. That is the istihaadah period. A ‘clean period’ in this sense will mean a ‘non-haidh’ period.
If you cannot remember which part of the month you started your first bleeding then write back for further advise.
Mufti Siraj Desai