Ruqyahwhilemenstruating,junub,orpregnant

The ruling

A woman is unwell, or her child is, and she is menstruating. On the stronger view she may perform ruqyah — over herself, over another person, and into water. The same is said of one who is junub.

The hesitation comes from a different question folded into this one: whether a menstruating woman may recite the Quran. That question is genuinely disputed among the scholars and always has been. Ruqyah is not straightforwardly the same question, and the fatwa bodies address it in its own right.

Why the practical answer matters

Because of who is affected, and when.

A mother whose child is unwell at three in the morning. A woman who has kept a daily practice for weeks and now believes she must drop it for a week in every four. A wife who is the only person in the house who would recite over anybody. Multiply a week a month across a lifetime and the cost of getting this wrong becomes very large — and it falls entirely on women, quietly, with nobody noticing.

What is open to her is the ordinary practice in full: reciting over herself, including the three Quls and a wipe before sleep; reciting over her children and her household; reciting into water and oil; and keeping the morning and evening adhkār, which are duʿā and dhikr and are unaffected by any of this.

In pregnancy

Nothing about pregnancy restricts ruqyah. She may recite and be recited over exactly as anyone else.

What belongs alongside it, because it is where real harm happens, is that pregnancy is a medical situation first. Bleeding, pain, reduced movement, anything that frightens her — that is a midwife or a doctor, today, and no spiritual reading of it changes that. Our page on miscarriage claims deals with this separately, since it is among the cruellest things said to grieving women.

If you follow a different view

Some hold the more restrictive position on a menstruating woman reciting Quran, and a woman who follows it has done nothing wrong.

Even then a great deal remains available to her: the prophetic duʿās of ruqyah, which are supplication rather than recitation; the adhkār; and her own asking in her own words. Nobody is left with nothing, and a woman should know that before the week starts rather than during it.