Fathwa, - Menstruation Started Before She Prayed…

Question:
If a sister is expecting her period anytime... she is doing housework,
or helping around the house and time for Salah enters, but she is
still occupied in doing something as useless as watching TV or doing
something important as housework/helping parents etc. so she keeps the
niyah about making her salah before it is Qadah, but eventually when
she goes to make her salah she finds that she has gotten her period.
Henceforth she cannot make that salah anymore...is this a sin upon
her?...because she could have done it but yet she was occupied... and
she did make the niyah to make the salah before it became Qadah... if
this is a sin depending on what she was doing please explain that as
well
Answer:
Assalamu alaykum
There is no sin upon this lady and she is not expected to make the
prayer up. This is because in menstruation we look to the end of the
prayer time. If she menstruated any time before the end of a
particular prayer time, even if only moments before the beginning of
the next prayer time, then she is not responsible for offering that
particular prayer. It would be just as if she was menstruating for
that entire prayer time. (Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar, 1:292, 'Ilmiyya)
This is a great mercy from Allah Most High otherwise ladies in such
situations would have to hasten to pray as soon as a prayer time
enters which could clearly be awkward. Conversely this same principle
applies when a lady's menstruation draws to a close. If the bleeding
stops before the end of a prayer time then one is responsible for
offering that prayer as long as it leaves one with enough time to
perform the ritual bath and to start the obligatory prayer. This means
that one must be careful to check before the end of a prayer time for
the cessation of bleeding if one is expecting the bleeding to end so
that one may hasten to pray before the end of a prayer time.
And Allah knows best.