Fatwa: Travel and the Daily Prayers -Mufti Abu Layth

Right, I was asked a question about traveling and shortening the prayer. Now, if somebody is about to travel, um there's two issues here. One is shortening the prayer and one is combining the prayers. Those of you who just tuned in, if you can click like, click share, get this out there, people. Let other people join in. Share the love, people.

Share the love. Right, so now Those of you just tuning in. Right, so coming you're traveling. Now, combining the prayers as in praying them together. So, Dhuhr and Asr can be combined and Maghrib and Isha can be combined. This can be done to create convenience.

Okay, you don't even have to be traveling, but if you were you had some issue, it could be work related, studies related. It could be that someday there's going you're caught up in a very hectic day. You can combine the prayers to make ease and there is a sahih hadith in Sahih Sahih Muslim by Ibn Abbas where he's giving a lecture and he delays Maghrib and he In fact, somebody one of these very somebody in the crowd has a what I call a taqwa attack.

You know, and then all of a sudden the taqwa Yes, Allahu Akbar. So, somebody has a taqwa attack on the companion Ibn Abbas and tells him, "Ya Ibn Abbas, pray." And then he just says to them, "Shut up." And then he carries on with his speech, ignores them.

And then Isha time comes in and after he finishes his speech, he gets off and he prays. And he combines between Maghrib and Isha. And he says, "I saw the messenger of Allah combine when there was no actual like because people were accustomed to combining if there was rain or if there was fear. And he said without fear or travel. And in another narration without fear or rain.

Now without no travel, no fear. So the person said what why would he do that Ibn Abbas? And he said he wanted to make it easy for his ummah. He didn't want his ummah to be inconvenienced. Peace be upon him. Peace be upon him. That is the messenger of Allah, the messenger of mercy. Okay, so based on that certain Maliki like Ash-hab, the great student of Imam Malik and other people before him like Ibn Sirin from the Tabi'in and I believe maybe Ibn al-Mundhir or one to of the latest scholars said that if you wish to combine prayers for inconvenience, you can.

Right? And that is the ruling that I give that if you wish to combine prayers, then in line with that legacy of thinking from the school of Medina, you can do. Okay? So So if you are traveling, combining prayers isn't an issue. The shortening of prayers has a time frame. Okay? Now people so that means if it's a four unit prayer, it's reduced to just two. Okay?

So Dhuhr becomes just two, Asr becomes two, Isha becomes two. That's the only reduction. So three cannot be reduced and two cannot be reduced. Now this is done for a set limit. Now the general school of Medina believes that if you're traveling for four whole days of residence, so that excludes the day of arrival and departure.

So the day of arrival and departure would make it six whole days. Like six days. Right? So not whole but six days. So you arrive the day you arrive, you do not count that day. But, 4 days after that, and you do not count the day of departure. So, within this time frame, if you're going to stay for anything longer than that, you will then pray full and incomplete.

Incomplete as in not incomplete, but pray completely. Incomplete in a completed manner. Right, so But, you can, however, still combine if the need be. The Shafi'i are pretty much close with that as well, and the Hanbali. The Hanafi do have a very extended way of looking at things. They said that a person could be traveling for up to 15 days.

Which is interesting, but it is based on some weak Hadith. So, I've always felt more comfortable sticking with the school of Medina on that. The Hanafi madhhab, however, does not is one of the only madhhabs that has holistically rejected the combining of prayers. And it's interesting that Imam Abu Hanifah openly allegedly said that anybody who combines prayers has committed a major sin.

Um Which is interesting, but it has been established in many sahih Hadith. And in the authentic transmitted Sunnah in Medina. So, it is permissible, okay.