I asked Ayesha, "Why does a menstruating woman make up the fasts but not the prayers?"She replied, "Are you a Haruriyyah?"I said, "I am not a Haruriyyah, but I am asking."She said, "This used to happen to us, and we were ordered to make up the fasts but were not ordered to make up the prayers."
سألت عائشة فقلت: ما بال الحائض تقضي الصوم ولا تقضي الصلاة؟ فقالت: أحرورية أنت؟ قلت: لست بحرورية، ولكني أسأل، قالت: كان يصيبنا ذلك فنؤمر بقضاء الصوم، ولا نؤمر بقضاء الصلاة.
Bukhari narrated it in the Book of Menstruation (321) from Hammam, from Qatada, who said, Muaza told me that a woman said to Ayesha, "Does one of us make up her prayer when she becomes pure?" She said, "Are you a Harooriyyah? We used to menstruate during the time of the Prophetﷺ, and he did not command us to do that." Or she said, "and we did not do it."Muslim narrated it in the Book of Menstruation (335) from Hammad, from Yazid Rishk, from Muaza, that a woman asked Ayesha, and he related the hadith, in which it says, "One of us used to menstruate during the time of the Messenger of Allahﷺ, and she was not commanded to make it up."Shuba narrated from Yazid that Muaza herself was the one who asked the question, and likewise Aasim narrated from Muaza that she herself was the questioner, and all of these versions are in Sahih Muslim.As for her saying, "Are you a Harooriyyah?" the Harooriyyah were a faction of the Kharijites who settled in a village called Harooraa, where their first gathering and pact took place.By her question, "Are you a Harooriyyah?" Ayesha meant, "Are you from the faction of the Kharijites who require a menstruating woman to make up her prayers?" So the woman said, "No, but I am only asking," meaning a plain question seeking knowledge, not out of stubbornness, just as she herself was not one of the Kharijites.When Ayesha understood from her the desire to seek knowledge, she answered, and she limited her answer to the evidence without giving the reasoning behind it.As for specifying forty days for a woman in postpartum bleeding, no reliable hadith has been established on this, and the best thing narrated on this subject is the hadith of Umm Salama.