The Ruling on Shortening and Combining Prayers for University Students

Question:
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. May Allah reward you with good, Your Excellency the Shaykh. I am only speaking from the perspective of my specialization in the University’s Agency for Educational Affairs. I am pleased to inform you, Your Excellency the Shaykh, that the university has departments for Islamic studies and the Arabic language in nearly all of the university’s provinces. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of male and female students studying in these disciplines. As Your Eminence the Shaykh knows, the honor of knowledge is derived from the honor of what is known. If your eminence would see fit to offer a guiding word to the students, especially in these specializations, to be sincere in their intention, and to ensure that the pursuit of Sharia and linguistic (Arabic language) knowledge is connected to the rectitude of this, first. Also, a word to your other sons in the other specializations, that what includes their colleagues of the scholar’s virtue is given to them, even though, of course, the honor of what is known differs, since the Sharia specializations and the Arabic language have the honor of what is known. This is a request for advice. Also, there is a question that truly arises from the students regarding shortening the prayer: the university is vast in its extent, and the distance between its ends is sometimes more than two hundred kilometers. So, is it permissible for the male and female student to shorten the prayer and combine them, especially if the duration is four or five years throughout their stay at the university? May Allah preserve you, O Shaykh.

Answer:
Yes, without a doubt, as you mentioned, the universities are relatively far apart, and there may be long distances between them. As long as a person is on the road between one university and another, or to any direction he wishes, if the distance is eighty kilometers or more, he may shorten the prayer on the road, and he may combine the two prayers in the time of one of them, either combining by bringing forward or combining by delaying. This is if he is traveling on the road going and returning. But if he is staying in a town or in a university for a long period exceeding four days, he has no right to shorten or combine, because the travel is broken by the stay. So he must pray the prayer of the resident, completing the prayer and praying every prayer in its time, without shortening or combining. Yes.