For imams
A sister often hears about her iddah from you first, at the janāzah or after a talāq. This site is something you can hand her: it reports the four schools with their sources, and it sends her back to you.
- This site reports what the sources say and never rules. It is not a fatwā. Where the schools differ, it shows all four and sends her to her imam or a scholar.
- Every page is published pending scholarly review until a reviewer signs it, and says so on the page.
- To report a mistake, email hello@iddah.org with the page address and the source. Please do not send details about the woman you are helping.
- The handouts carry a QR code to the site's path home page only. The code has no tracking tag, and the site has no analytics, so no one learns who scanned it.
Why it exists
- In English, most iddah guidance is single fatwā questions and answers, scattered across sites and written to one school at a time. AMJA's own site search for "iddah" returns individual questions, not a guide.1
- The one widely used online iddah calculator we found returns a single end date and names no school.2
- On 18 Oct 2026 the US App Store had no iddah guide or tool.3
- In a US study of Muslim widows, some found their masjid "ill-prepared" to support them, largely because members did not know what they could and should do.4
- Women ask the same practical questions again and again: work and night shifts, the doctor and the store, moving out of an unsafe home, a court divorce and a talāq on different dates. This site gathers them in one place, with all four schools and their sources.
How to hand it over
- At a janāzah or in the days after: give the widow or her family the printed widow handout, or say the address, iddah.org.
- After a talāq or a khulʿ, or when a woman tells you her marriage has ended: give her the divorce handout.
- By text: send only the link, iddah.org. Remember a shared phone may be read by someone else, so do not add details about her in the message.
- If she may not be safe at home, point her first to What to do now (iddah.org/now/) and the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1-800-799-7233.
- Tell her she can still come back to you, or to another scholar, with her own question.
The handouts
What not to say
- Do not tell her that leaving an unsafe home breaks her iddah. She does not have to stay where she is not safe; the schools' words on moving for danger are on the ruling pages.
- Do not add rules the sources do not carry (the moon, one room, only white or black clothes, no phone).
- Do not apply a widow's mourning rules to a divorced woman by default; they differ.
- Do not decide in public, or in front of her family, whether her divorce took place or when her iddah began.
- Do not use her case, even without her name, as an example in a khuṭbah or class.
If something is wrong
Every point names its source, so you can check it. If you find a mistake, write to hello@iddah.org with the page and the source. Please leave out anything that could identify a sister.
Sources
- 1
AMJA Online, site search for "iddah"
- 2
General Iftaa' Department (Jordan), Calculator of Iddah
- 3
Apple iTunes Search API, term "iddah", country US, software
- 4
Debra Majeed, chapter in Kecia Ali (ed.), Tying the Knot: A Feminist/Womanist Guide to Muslim Marriage in America (OpenBU PDF)