Combining the Maghrib and 'Isha' prayers due to dust
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. The questioner says: I entered one of the mosques in Riyadh on a day with very heavy dust, and the imam stood up to combine the 'Isha' prayer with the Maghrib prayer. I told him that the senior scholars prohibit doing so. He says: A student of knowledge stood up and said this is a matter of scholarly disagreement, so they combined the prayers. As for me, I left and did not combine with them. Is my action correct?
Answer:
You did well. Combining the prayers for dust is not permissible. There is no evidence that combining is done for dust; rather, combining is prescribed for rain, mud, and a cold night. A strong, cold wind is a reason for combining, but there is no evidence for combining for dust. Dust is constant; the air is never free of dust, meaning people would always be combining.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. The questioner says: I entered one of the mosques in Riyadh on a day with very heavy dust, and the imam stood up to combine the 'Isha' prayer with the Maghrib prayer. I told him that the senior scholars prohibit doing so. He says: A student of knowledge stood up and said this is a matter of scholarly disagreement, so they combined the prayers. As for me, I left and did not combine with them. Is my action correct?
Answer:
You did well. Combining the prayers for dust is not permissible. There is no evidence that combining is done for dust; rather, combining is prescribed for rain, mud, and a cold night. A strong, cold wind is a reason for combining, but there is no evidence for combining for dust. Dust is constant; the air is never free of dust, meaning people would always be combining.
Source
شرح إغاثة اللهفان من مصائد الشيطان لابن القيم، الفصل الأول في النية في الطهارة والصلاة — islamhouse.com (1:13:32)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.