Abu-d Darda’ said that when the Prophet passed a woman who was near the time to be delivered of a child he asked about her and was told that she was so and so’s slave woman. He asked whether he was having sexual intercourse with her, and when he was told that he was, he said, “I am inclined to invoke a curse on him which will enter his grave with him. How can he take the child into his service when that is not lawful for him, or how can he make it an heir when that is not lawful for him?”*
* The reason for the curse is said to be because he did wait the prescribed period after acquiring the woman and so could not know whether the child was his or not. If he treated the child as a slave he might be enslaving his own son, and if he treated it as an heir he might be doing this to one who was not his son.
Sa'id b. al-Musayyib reported ‘Umar b. al-Khattab as saying, “If any woman is divorced and has one or two menstrual periods then stops menstruating she must wait nine months, and if it is apparent that she is pregnant the rules concerning that are applied; otherwise she must observe a period of three months after the nine months are ended, after which she may lawfully remarry.
Abu Sa'id al-Khurdi traced to the Prophet the following statement regarding the captives taken at Autas, “There must be no intercourse with a pregnant woman till she gives birth to her child, or with one who is not pregnant till she has had one menstrual period.”
Sulaiman b. Yasar told that al-Ahwas died in Syria when his wife whom he had divorced was at the beginning of her third menstrual period, as Mu'awiya b. Abu Sufyan wrote to Zaid b. Thabit asking him about that. Zaid wrote in reply that when she began her third period she was free from him and he was free from her; he could not inherit from her or she from him.
