Some of the people of Iraq raised an objection against Malik ibn Anas, saying: 'If you determine the duration of menstruation to be one day, both at the minimum and the maximum, then if her husband divorces her, her waiting period (iddah) would expire in a matter of a few days.' He replied: 'Her ruling regarding divorce is that she must wait for the maximum number of her habitual days before she was afflicted with istihadah (prolonged non-menstrual bleeding).' If they were to say: 'You have established two rulings for the mustahadah: one ruling for divorce separately, and one ruling for prayer separately,' they would be told: 'You are only objecting to someone who has followed the Sunnah and imitated it, just as you are doing. How is it permissible for you to object to Malik, the people of Medina, and those who followed their path and their discernment when the status of the mustahadah became ambiguous to them between the time for prayer and the time for the divorce waiting period, when you have all unanimously stated: If a woman’s menstruation was five days, then she saw six days the second month, and seven days the third month, we would take for her the minimum of her habitual days for the purpose of prayer, and the maximum of her habitual days for the purpose of the divorce waiting period?' Is this distinction you make based on your own intellects any different from what you criticized Malik ibn Anas and the people of Medina for, where they differentiated between the ruling for prayer and the ruling for divorce? In fact, they were more adherent, more thorough, and more cautious than you, as they returned the ruling of the mustahadah, when it became confused, to what most closely resembles the Book and the Sunnah. God has set the waiting period for divorced women as three menstrual cycles (quru'), and for those who have no menstrual cycles, He has set one month in place of each cycle. It is from this basis that they issued their ruling.