Rulings on Shortening and Combining Prayers While Travelingأحكام قصر الصلاة وجمعها في السفر

Questioner: Many people are lax regarding the matter of combining prayers, while shortening is clearer to them. What if a person remains a day or two in an area and hears the call to prayer and sees the congregation established, yet continues to shorten his prayer — should he take the concession or not?

Shortening the prayer is, by consensus, connected to travel: whoever is traveling shortens his prayer, unless he follows a resident imam in prayer, in which case he prays the full prayer along with him, as was stated by Ibn 'Umar and Ibn 'Abbas, and this is the position of the majority of scholars among the Companions, the Successors, and the later Imams who are followed.

The scholars, may Allah have mercy on them, differed over the duration after which a traveler is considered to have settled and is no longer permitted to shorten. Some held that the limit is four days, and this is the position of many of the jurists. Others held that no specific duration limits this, so long as the person still regards himself as a traveler, and this is the position held by many of the Companions. A man came to Ibn 'Umar and said, "We are going to Madinah for seven or eight months" — Ibn 'Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, told him, "Pray two rak'ahs." This was related by 'Abd al-Razzaq with a sound chain, and this is the view chosen by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, and others: that so long as a person considers himself a traveler, he continues to shorten his prayer.

If, however, a person intends to settle in a town — for instance, intending to remain there for a year — then, out of caution, it is proper to give the ruling that he is a resident, since he is no longer merely passing through: he hears the call to prayer, sits among the settled Muslims, and has become established there, with no intention of relocating from that town — in such a case, the ruling of residency should be given. Precision in this matter is called for, since it is a matter of scholarly discretion (ijtihadiyyah), and being a matter of discretion, people's application of it must be regulated so that neither excess nor negligence results. This differs from the case of a man who says he will stay a week or two, for it is clear in such a case that he does not intend to settle, and he is therefore still considered a traveler.

The traveler is likewise still obligated to pray in congregation, for congregational prayer is obligatory both when resident and when traveling; what is dropped for the traveler is only the obligation to attend the mosque specifically, based on the hadith of Yazid ibn al-Aswad narrated by the authors of the Five Books (al-Khamsah), but the obligation of praying in congregation itself is not dropped, for Allah, exalted is He, commanded congregational prayer even during times of fear, and it remains legislated during travel as well, on account of the general evidences establishing the obligation of congregational prayer. Therefore, if a traveler is praying alone and the time for prayer comes, he must seek out a congregation, since that without which an obligation cannot be fulfilled is itself obligatory.

As for combining two prayers, this is unrelated to travel as such; it is instead tied to genuine need. Whoever has a need may combine between Dhuhr and 'Asr, or between Maghrib and 'Isha, and people will differ in how they assess the extent of that need. The Prophet ﷺ combined Dhuhr with 'Asr, and Maghrib with 'Isha, in Madinah itself, without fear or illness, as recorded by Muslim. Ibn Jurayj asked Abu al-Zubayr why he had combined; he said, "I asked Sa'id ibn Jubayr, and he said, 'I asked Ibn 'Abbas,' and he said, 'He wanted not to place his community in hardship.'" That is, so as not to place them in difficulty — so if leaving off the combining would cause hardship, then one combines, and if there is no hardship, one does not combine.

What, then, constitutes hardship? The Prophet ﷺ stayed in Mina on the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth days — four days during the Hajj — and he shortened the prayer without combining it. Yet the Prophet ﷺ stayed in Tabuk, as recorded in the hadith of Mu'adh in Sahih Muslim, for twenty days, during which he both combined and shortened his prayers. In the first case there was no genuine need, while in the second there was. Need is assessed according to its own circumstances: a person may have a need connected to his own local mosque that does not exist with respect to another mosque, so that when we ourselves have a genuine need we combine, without this obligating someone else to combine as well — rather, it is the person who has the actual need who combines. This need might pertain to an entire community, such as the presence of an obstacle preventing them from reaching the mosque — heavy rain, extreme cold, an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, or fierce winds such that a man fears harm should he go out. Or the need might be specific to an individual, such as someone cooking a dish before Dhuhr who fears that if he goes to pray Dhuhr his food will burn, so he combines it with 'Asr's time; or a baker who fears his bread will burn; or a woman with istihadah (irregular bleeding) who has only a single garment, and who, according to the majority, must perform wudu for every prayer time — such people are given the concession to combine.

Combining out of genuine need does not incur sin. But if a traveler combines without any need, he does not sin either — this is the difference between the traveler and the resident: the traveler who combines without need does not sin, though it is preferable for him to combine only when there is a genuine need. As for the resident, combining without need is a sin. 'Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, said, "Among the grave sins is combining two prayers without a valid excuse," related by al-Isma'ili. And Allah knows best.

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