Sorry Manat can you provide with some sources regarding labour? Seems crazy :S
Sorry I'm a tosser! I didn't see this until today! I apologize. But think about what you're saying. It seems crazy... why? Because it's unbelievably hard on women, that's why. I was urged by several shaykhs and ustazas to keep on the salat during the times when I was having children, and only one of them - out of so many - bothered to give me a rukhsa.
This is how crazy sunni Islam is - Big Al requires you to have a rukhsa to not pray to him... he demands unquestioning obedience even at this time unless you have official permission from a scholar for mercy. The rule in sunni Islam is that the nifaas starts when half of the child or more has exited the birth canal. Until you are in a state of nifaas, you are obliged to pray. Since the ulamaa have been overwhelmingly penis-endowed, they see no need or reason to construct rules of ease and comfort for women.
http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=12&ID=3402&CATE=87http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=3&ID=3939&CATE=456http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=12&ID=255&CATE=87http://islamqa.com/en/ref/1151/childbirth%20prayerRead those and your head will spin. I can't believe I used to think I was studying logical, important things that were necessary to understand. Now, I look at it and see how anal retentive and ridiculous it is.
A pregnant woman does not need to fast right?
No a pregnant woman is excused from fasting if she has valid fear for the health of the child (most mazhabs) or herself (one mazhab). She then must make up those days later and must also pay the fidyah. Most of the women I was friends with struggled to fast in Ramadan during their pregnancies, and it was very hard to watch them get so run down and ill.
If you are super-religious and devout in scholar worship, you will not even leave it to your own good senses to decide if you and the child are at risk - you must have the okay of a religious Muslim doctor who is educated in the sciences of the deen. However, you can go to a non-Muslim doctor and then you evaluate his or her opinion in light of your own Muslim opinion, since obviously your being Muslim supercedes their health knowledge.
Or you can follow "clear signs," like you pass out. My good friends, decent believing sisters, pushed themselves to the edge, not wanting to disappoint or anger allah by not fasting, even when their skin turned grey, their eyes sank in, and their energy reached a nadir.
Personally? I did not fast in the Ramadans that I was pregnant. I was sick enough as it was. I wasn't putting myself (why is it wrong for a Muslim woman to think of herself?) or my child at risk.
http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=1&ID=6687&CATE=1610http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=1&ID=322&CATE=6 -- This one might make you want to barf as though you yourself have morning sickness
http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=1&ID=319http://islamqa.com/en/ref/66438/fasting%20pregnantAgain, if the ulamaa were the ones who were pregnant, I am certain the "rules of allah" regarding the fast of thoes who are pregnant would be much, much more relaxed.
Does it say if she can sit? Or does she have to pray standing :S Not sure if that would have been in the text itself, probably tied into if it's too difficult for you to pray standing then you may sit. But still there is 5 prayers, and a lot of standing up and then sitting down only for those prostration parts and the kneeling part of prayer.
Actually I can?t even imagine what that is like. Do you know anybody that prayed while pregnant?
Yes you must pray when you are pregnant, even if you are bleeding in the pregnancy. Of course you can sit down if the standing and bending is too much for you. I stayed sitting on the floor and prayed that way in one of my pregnancies because standing up for any length of time was too painful. I did get yelled at by some of the ustazas in my masjid too who felt that I should stand up and pray until such time as I was about to fall over in pain and then I should sit down in the middle of the prayer and finish it sitting.
Topic: Does a muslim husband need to tell his 1st wife that he's getting a 2nd wife?