Intention to combine the two prayers in the case of rain

The questioner : Regarding combining by bringing forward due to rain, or the intention at the time of the Isha prayer, is the intention to combine required from the beginning? That is, must the intention to combine be made from the time of Maghrib?

The Shaykh : The Shafi'i school holds that it is obligatory to form the intention before the first prayer, but this, first of all, has no evidence. In fact, I believe that this cannot be prescribed, and the reason is...
This is something we are often asked about, especially in this season, the season of rains and severe cold. We have been asked repeatedly about a man who enters the mosque to pray Maghrib, and finds that the congregation is praying Isha. And peace be upon you, and Allah's mercy and blessings. If he catches the prayer behind this imam who is praying Isha at its beginning, the imam then stands for the fourth rak'ah and prays Maghrib, and at that point he realizes that his prayer is not the imam's prayer. What does he do? We say: he intends to separate when the imam stands for the fourth rak'ah; he sits and completes this obligatory prayer of Maghrib, then he stands, intends, and prays the Isha prayer. So I say: this person who entered and found the people praying Isha, how would he know that they are intending to combine? Is it possible to require such a person to know that they prayed Maghrib and are now praying the combined prayer? That is one point. The other point is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), when he combined with the people of Madinah, as Ibn Abbas says, in a situation of neither rain nor travel, it was never reported that in the first prayer he told them that it was for combining, neither in this case nor in travel, even though combining in travel prayer is very common. Therefore, I believe that this condition is not established or reported at all. It is sufficient for a person to combine when it appears to him that combining is appropriate, even after he has prayed the first obligatory prayer. Let us suppose that the imam finished the first Maghrib prayer. The other point is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), when he combined with the people of Madinah, as Ibn Abbas says, in a situation of neither rain nor travel, it was never reported that in the first prayer he told them to intend combining, neither in this case nor in travel, even though combining in travel prayer is very common. Therefore, I believe that this condition is not established or reported at all. It is sufficient for a person to combine when it appears to him that combining is appropriate, even after he has prayed the first obligatory prayer,

The questioner : And let us suppose that the imam finished the first Maghrib prayer, the first prayer, and when they were about to leave, the weather changed, I mean suddenly, and the rains poured down. Do they return?

The Shaykh : He understood. This is one of the benefits of abolishing this condition and the harm of establishing this condition. The issue of combining the two prayers in the case of rain. The purpose or wisdom, as it is said, is reasonable in meaning; it is not a matter where we do not know why combining was prescribed. The prescription of combining is a concession for the people. So if the facilitation is achieved in the situation you asked about, first, to combine the Muslims between the virtue of congregational prayer and the dispensation of not attending at the second time, the wise Shari'ah prescribed combining, so the congregants pray two obligatory prayers in congregation. This happened in the situation presented now, just as it happens in ordinary situations, meaning there is rain from the beginning of the first prayer, so they pray the first prayer intending to combine, and likewise the other prayer. Why? So that they are not forced to go out to the mosque while the rain is falling. Yes, this wisdom is achieved even in this situation: they entered the mosque to pray, for example, the Dhuhr prayer, and if