Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 222 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:222

وَيَسْـَٔلُونَكَ عَنِ ٱلْمَحِيضِ ۖ قُلْ هُوَ أَذًى فَٱعْتَزِلُوا۟ ٱلنِّسَآءَ فِى ٱلْمَحِيضِ ۖ وَلَا تَقْرَبُوهُنَّ حَتَّىٰ يَطْهُرْنَ ۖ فَإِذَا تَطَهَّرْنَ فَأْتُوهُنَّ مِنْ حَيْثُ أَمَرَكُمُ ٱللَّهُ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلتَّوَّٰبِينَ وَيُحِبُّ ٱلْمُتَطَهِّرِينَ

“And they ask you about menstruation. Say, "It is harm, so keep away from wives[82] during menstruation. And do not approach them until they are pure. And when they have purified themselves,[83] then come to them from where Allāh has ordained for you. Indeed, Allāh loves those who are constantly repentant and loves those who purify themselves."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Menstruation is named honestly as a discomfort, not a curse: only intimacy pauses, while closeness, the table and the shared home remain.

A reflection

She was never sent out of the house

In some homes, even now, a girl learns something at twelve. For a few days each month she may not cook, sit on certain chairs or touch certain things. Nobody explains why. She simply learns that her body has become a problem.

The question in this ayah came from a world like that. Sahih Muslim records that among the Jews of Madina, when a woman menstruated, they would not eat with her or share the house with her. The Companions asked the Prophet ﷺ, and this ayah came down. Then he said: 'Do everything except intercourse'.

Read that again. The ayah's 'keep away' was narrowed at once to one thing. Everything else stayed: the meal, the bed, the conversation, the touch of an ordinary day. The detailed rulings of those days belong to the scholars of law.

Two classical commentaries add a report. Some Muslims at first took 'keep away' literally and put women out of their houses. Bedouins came to complain: it is cold and we have few clothes. The Prophet ﷺ answered that they had been told to avoid intimacy only, not to drive women out of their homes.

Then look at how he lived it. ʿĀʾisha said he would recline in her lap while she was menstruating and recite the Quran (Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim). She would drink, pass him the cup, and he would put his mouth where hers had been (Sahih Muslim). The Quran itself rested in that lap.

Anyone who has turned this ayah into a rule of exile has read it backwards. It came to end the exile. The girl at the kitchen table deserves to know that.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.