Q: I was asked about the claim found in the work of a Sunni Yemeni scholar that our lady Fatima, may God be pleased with her, the daughter of God’s Messenger ﷺ did not menstruate like other women, because ‘her purity is from the purity of the Messenger of God ﷺ, which would reveal why she did not suffer the impurity of menstruation because she is linked to the Prophet ﷺ and nothing impure can be associated with one who is a part of the Messenger of God ﷺ.’ The book later claims that the ‘fact’ that she did not menstruate, allowed her, among other reasons, to attain a spiritual rank exclusive to men.
A: There are such narrations in Shia collections. As for Sunni hadith experts, they have all agreed that these are not authentic and have included them in the books of fabricated hadiths (such as the works of Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Suyuti and Ibn Arraq al-Kanani). Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi and al-Munawi are among the other scholars to point how the inauthencity of these reports.
These claims are not only based on fabricated hadiths, but they are very insulting to women, because they claim that menstruation, the natural phenonemon without which women would not be able to give birth, makes women themselves impure. This goes against the most authentic sayings of God’s Messenger ﷺ, such as:
“A believer never becomes impure” (Bukhari and Muslim)
And when God’s Messenger ﷺ asked our lady Aishah (may God be pleased with her) to bring him a prayer mat from the mosque, she said, ‘but I am menstruating.’ He ﷺ said to her, ‘but your menses is not in your hand!’ (Muslim)
This shows that the only thing impure about women during menstruation is the menstrual blood itself, not the rest of them, and that is simply because it is blood, and all blood is considered impure. Therefore if these people claim that Fatima never menstruated, because it would ‘make her impure’ then that means she could never bleed from a cut or injury either, because then impure blood would come out of her too!
There is a valid Sunni position that the blood of God’s Messenger ﷺ is different from other people, in that it is pure, and likewise his urine and the like. This is the position of the majority of late Shafi’is, and many late Malikis and Hanafis (al-Ayni even attributed it to Abu Hanifa himself), and some late Hanbalis too like al-Buhuti. Some late Maliki, Shafii and Hanafi scholars argued it is the same with all of God’s Prophets (peace be upon them all). However there is no proof that this extends to his daughter Fatima (may God be pleased with her). If these scholars want to say that Fatima’s entire body was pure, including her blood and everything that came out of her, because she came from God’s Messenger ﷺ, then it would not matter if she menstruated because her menstrual blood would have been pure like the rest of her blood! There is nothing particularly ‘dirty’ or impure about menstrual blood.
This author then claimed that there are spiritual ranks that women cannot attain, partly because of menstruation. It should be obvious by now that this is patently false. Secondly, it is the position of Imam Ash’ari, Imam Bukhari, and many later great Sunni scholars (including al-Qurtubi, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Ibn Hazm al-Zahiri, Ibn Arabi the Sufi, and others), that women can be Prophets, which is a higher spiritual rank than any other rank claimed by mystics and those who speak of spiritual ranks and stations, and even many among those who did not believe that women can be Prophets still affirmed that women can achieve the highest possible spiritual stations like men.
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