Can We Engage in Intimacy during My Wife’s Menstruation?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Is it permissible to engage in “dry humping” (rubbing against each other’s private area while wearing clothes and without penetration) when my wife is on her period?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

Yes. It is permissible for a husband to have intimate contact with his wife during her menstruation with the following conditions:

• Any contact between the navel and the knees must be done over a barrier that prevents skin-to-skin contact [Maydani, al-Lubab fi Sharh al-Kitab]
• Skin-to-skin contact anywhere else on her body is permissible. [Ibid.]

It is narrated that a man asked the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and give him peace), saying, “What is permissible for me of my wife while she is menstruating?” The Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and give him peace) said to him, “Tie the waste cloth (izar) around her; then you are permitted to do as you please above that.” [Malik, al-Muwatta’]

Note that the waist cloth covers the area between the navel and the knees.

The word ‘above’ can be understood in one of two valid ways:

• Between the navel and knees but above the cloth such that there is no skin-to-skin contact [‘Ali al-Qari, Mirqat al-Mafatih Sharh Mishkat al-Masabih]
• Above the area that the waistcloth is tied on: above the navel. This applies even without a barrier. [Ibid.]

Hope this helps
Allah knows best

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani 

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.