Question :

I have had Istihadah for so long. I paid a visit to the doctor and she told me that it is because I have a cyst in my womb. However, I heard that it has no organic cause. Rather, it is a strike from Satan. Could you clarify the true cause of Istihadah and whether it should be medically treated or by Quran?

The Answer :

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of The World, and may His peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Mohammad and upon all his family and companions.

Istihadah {Womb bleeding between periods} is treated with material means and medications prescribed by doctors. In fact, it is a sudden ailmentthatrequires visiting a specialized doctor. Moreover, there is no harm in reciting verses of Quran as Ruqya in order to prevent the devil from making a woman doubt her state of taharah(Ritual purity).
The Hadith:"This is a strike from Satan. " was narrated by Ahmad Ibn Hanbal in his Musnad, but many scholars of Hadith have considered it Da`ief {weak} and said that it is non-authentic. {Please refer to "Al-Mohar`rar Fi Al-Hadith", 147" and "Fateh Al-Bari by Ibn Rajab, 2/52}.

However, the Sahih Hadith(Authentic), in this regard, is the one narrated from Aishah,and in which Istihadahwas described as "A kick in the womb" and was also narrated in the "Musnad, 41/440" of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal.

Supposing that the first Hadith is Sahih, it doesn`t mean that Satan is the cause of Istihadah. Rather, Al-Imam Al-Khatabi said, "It means that Satan has found a way to make that woman doubt the time in which she is pure and so can perform prayer until he made her forgot it. As if she had received a strike from Satan, in addition to her forgetting the time in which she is in state of purity, as reflected in the verse, "But Satan made him forget to mention him to his lord.."{Yousef, 42}.And Allah knows best.