How long is my iddah, and how do I count the days?
If you are not pregnant, your iddah is four months and ten days, counted from his death.12 The months are lunar months, and the ten are ten nights with their days.34 If you are pregnant, the iddah ends at the birth instead; that page is linked below.5
What the four schools say
The schools agree on four months and ten days in lunar months. They differ on how to count when the death falls in the middle of a lunar month: by the crescent moon with the broken month made up to thirty days, or 130 days counted straight through.
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Ḥanafī الحنفية
Four lunar months and ten days, counted by the crescent if the death was on the first of the month; the ten are ten days with their nights.3 If the death fell in the middle of a month, Abū Ḥanīfah counts by days, 130 days; his two companions, Abū Yūsuf and Muḥammad, complete the first month from the last and count the months between by the crescent.7
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Mālikī المالكية
Four months and ten days for every widow of a valid marriage.11 A broken first month is made up to thirty days from the last month, and the months between are counted by the crescent; the day of death is not counted.9 For a consummated marriage there is one more detail: if a period she expected within the four months and ten days did not come, she waits longer, so ask about it.11
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Shāfiʿī الشافعية
Four months and ten days with their nights, counted by the crescent where possible. If he died with more than ten days of the month left, she counts those days, then three months by the crescent, then makes the death month up to thirty from the following month, then adds ten days. If she cannot know the crescents, she counts 130 days.410
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Ḥanbalī الحنابلة
Four months and ten days by the agreement of the scholars, and the ten are ten nights with their days.12 Months begin at the crescent; if the iddah starts mid-month, she counts the rest of that month, then whole months by the crescent, then makes the first month up to thirty days. The count runs from the hour of his death to the same hour.813
What can change this
- Pregnancy: the iddah ends at the birth, an event, not after a set number of days.56
- A worked example with a made-up date: say he died at midday on the 12th of a lunar month that has 30 days. Counting by the crescent, she counts the 18 days left in that month, then the next three lunar months by the moon, then 12 days of the following month to make the first month thirty, then ten more days.4 Counting 130 days, she counts 130 days from the death.7 The two counts land close together, a few days apart at most, depending on whether the lunar months in between have 29 or 30 days.
- Where the day of death itself is counted differs: the Ḥanbalī text counts from the hour he died;8 the Mālikī text leaves out the day of death.9
- If you have lost track of the crescents, the Shāfiʿī texts say to count each month as thirty days, which comes to 130 days.410
Sources
- 1
Qurʾān, al-Baqarah 2:234
- 2
Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1280 · None shown on sunnah.com (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī)
- 3
Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muḥtār ʿalā al-Durr al-Mukhtār (Ḥanafī), Ḥalabī ed., 3:510
- 4
al-Nawawī, Rawḍat al-Ṭālibīn (Shāfiʿī), 8:398–399
- 5
Qurʾān, al-Ṭalāq 65:4
8 more sources, 6 to 13
- 6
Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muḥtār ʿalā al-Durr al-Mukhtār (Ḥanafī), Ḥalabī ed., 3:511
- 7
Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muḥtār ʿalā al-Durr al-Mukhtār (Ḥanafī), Ḥalabī ed., 3:509
- 8
Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī (Ḥanbalī), Maktabat al-Qāhirah ed., 8:106
- 9
al-Dardīr, al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr, with Ḥāshiyat al-Dasūqī (Mālikī), 2:470–471
- 10
al-Ramlī, Nihāyat al-Muḥtāj ilā Sharḥ al-Minhāj (Shāfiʿī), 7:145–146
- 11
al-Dardīr, al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr, with Ḥāshiyat al-Dasūqī (Mālikī), 2:475
- 12
Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī (Ḥanbalī), Maktabat al-Qāhirah ed., 8:115–116
- 13
Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī (Ḥanbalī), Maktabat al-Qāhirah ed., 8:105