What is the ruling on combining two prayers while resident and while traveling?

The questioner : In the name of Allah, and may prayers and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah. As for what follows, a hadith was reported in Sahih al-Bukhari from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), narrated by Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) combined the Dhuhr and Asr prayers while resident. Is it permissible for a Muslim to pray two prayers without an excuse? Aisha says, "and not traveling." So, is it permissible for a person residing in his town to combine Dhuhr with Asr without an excuse? Please inform us, may Allah reward you.

The Shaykh : The question is understood, but it contains an error that must be corrected. It is that the Lady Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) has no hadith whatsoever in this meaning. Likewise, there is no hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari with this meaning, even if narrated by someone other than Aisha. Rather, you are referring to the hadith of Ibn Abbas, which Imam Muslim included in his Sahih, from Ibn Abbas, who said: He intended not to burden his Ummah. The apparent meaning of the hadith is that it is permissible to combine two prayers while resident and without the excuse of rain, because rain is a legal excuse that permits combining two prayers. Here, Ibn Abbas says that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) combined while resident and combined without the excuse of rain. He confirmed this when the previous question was directed to him: "What did he do that for?" He said, "He intended not to burden his Ummah." This is the hadith. In Sahih Muslim, and not in al-Bukhari, there is a hadith with the meaning of combining prayers in the city eight times, but it does not contain this detail mentioned or narrated by Imam Muslim from Ibn Abbas. And in it is this important point that was the answer to that question, namely his saying (may Allah be pleased with him), "He intended not to burden his Ummah." He intended not to burden his Ummah. Some scholars, both past and present, have held that this combining is permissible while resident without an excuse. I do not see that as correct. That is because the narrator of the hadith attributes the combining of the Messenger (peace be upon him) without an excuse to another excuse, in the context of legislation and clarification for people, where Ibn Abbas said, "He intended not to burden his Ummah." And the meaning of that is that the ruling on combining while resident is conditioned by the presence of hardship in not combining. And where there is hardship in performing the prayers at their known times, then to remove the hardship that Allah the Exalted negated, as in His saying: , combining is permissible. But if there is no hardship, then it is obligatory to maintain performing the five prayers, each prayer in its time, because there is no hardship. For example, I am sitting here and I hear the adhan in the mosque near me, and I am able to go out, and there is nothing of hardship on me to go out, so it is not permissible for me to combine. And conversely, when I came on this trip, I found this elevator out of order, and it is very difficult for me, as you see, due to pain in my knee, to go down and up by the stairs. So some prayers passed for me without me going out to the mosque. But when the elevator was fixed and it saved me the difficulty of going up and down, it became obligatory for me to pray every prayer in the mosque, because I do not find that hardship that I found when I first arrived here. So, combining is only permissible to remove hardship, and where there is no hardship, there is no combining. These are two interrelated matters: no hardship, no combining; there is hardship, there is combining. And this is the best that can be said in reconciling this authentic hadith with the hadiths that explicitly state that each prayer is for its time and that it is not permissible to be distracted from it. Especially since combining necessitates, in most cases, turning away from the prayer with the congregation, as I described to you my initial situation. This is the answer to what you asked.