I traveled to an area near my hometown and stayed with a relative, even though my stay might only be a few days. Do I combine prayers or shorten them?

The questioner : I traveled to an area that is not my home, from Aqaba, and stayed in a hotel or some other place, or with a relative. The duration of the stay varies. Do I combine and shorten?

The Shaykh : You look at your situation when you arrive at the hotel or at your host's place. If you are still in a state of travel and have not intended to stay for rest and relaxation or the like, then you are as Allah the Exalted said: . The important thing is to observe your situation. If you are traveling, you shorten the prayer. If you have settled and intended to stay in the place where you arrived, you pray in full, and that is the matter.

The questioner : There is no specific number of days! I intend to stay only three or four days just for rest and relaxation, for example?

The Shaykh : There is no fixed number of days; rather, the matter is as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . If you intend to stay, do not look at the number of days, because a person intends to stay for rest. As for the one who is on business and has tasks to follow up on, he is a traveler no matter how many days pass, and the opposite is exactly the opposite. Because the truth is that the issue of travel, whether in terms of covering the distance from one town to another or in terms of the days one stays in the other town, is a matter of great disagreement among the scholars. There is no text that resolves this disagreement except returning to custom, to which Allah the Exalted has linked many rulings, including the verse I mentioned earlier, which is His saying: . Here in the verse are two terms: one is what we are discussing, which is travel, and the other is illness. And Allah the Mighty and Majestic linked the ruling of fasting or breaking the fast to each of these two terms, saying: . So he breaks his fast and makes up other days. This is the meaning of the verse. But from the meaning of the verse, making up a number of other days is obligatory, but breaking the fast is not obligatory. That is, if one is a traveler, it is not said that he must break his fast; rather, this is left to him, as came in the hadith of Hamzah al-Aslami, who asked the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and said, "O Messenger of Allah, I am a man who travels a lot, and this month, Ramadan, catches me. Should I fast or break my fast?" He said: .
So if this traveler prefers to break his fast, he makes up other days. But if he finds no hardship in fasting, he owes nothing; he simply fasts like a resident.
The other matter is illness: . Is it not permissible for this sick person who fell ill during the month of fasting to break his fast until he goes to the doctor and gets a report stating that he is sick? The answer is no. How, then? The one obligated to fast judges himself, for he knows himself better than anyone else whether he is ill or sick, and he proceeds accordingly.
My point is that these two terms in the noble verse were made general by Allah Blessed and Exalted is He, and they were not restricted in the Book or the Sunnah. Therefore, if someone is sick, how do we know he is sick? It is not necessary that you know; the important thing is that he knows. Does a person not know himself? The answer is no. So if he sees himself as sick, he breaks his fast. Even if the doctor tells him, "You are sick," and he does not feel this illness, he does not adopt the doctor's opinion; rather, he judges himself, as our Lord the Mighty and Majestic said: .
So this generality means entrusting the matter to those obligated to fast. The same is said regarding travelers. And I must mention for you an interesting example regarding the sick person in Ramadan:
You must have heard of Muhammad ibn Sirin. He was one of the great scholars of the Tabi'un and one of those who narrated a lot from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) in particular. This noble man was seen in Ramadan breaking his fast, and those who saw him were surprised that he was breaking his fast. He pointed to them, meaning his finger was hurting him, so he considered himself sick and broke his fast.
So it is the person who judges himself.
To complete part of the previous discussion, two men may leave a town for another town, and both are travelers. But when they enter the other town, one remains a traveler and the other is considered a resident, like you. The one with you is still a traveler because he has not stayed in another house of his, whereas you stayed in your other house, so you are a resident and he is a traveler. Both of you left a town and stayed in a town. In fact, they may leave a town, one as a traveler and the other not a traveler. How? He did not intend to travel as the other did. And the Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah gave a wonderful example for this second type:
You have heard of the city of Aleppo in Syria. Between Damascus and Aleppo is about four hundred kilometers. So imagine Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah describing a man who left Damascus not as a traveler. This is first, meaning he did not intend to travel, but was hunting to hunt. He left Damascus to the Gouta, to a village near Damascus, for example, one called Jubair. He did not find game, so he walked from Jubair to Harasta, and so on, continuing the road from Harasta to Dumah to ... to ... to. Shaykh al-Islam says he reached Aleppo.

The questioner : He walked four hundred kilometers.

The Shaykh : Four hundred, yes. Meaning, as you know, Damascus is the capital of Syria, and Aleppo is in the north, meaning the distance between it and the Turkish border is very close. The important thing is that this man covered four hundred kilometers and was not a traveler. Why? First, he did not intend to travel when he left. It is true that he covered a travel distance, but he did not cover it as a traveler; rather, he was hunting. And so, matters vary in this and have precision, and the matter returns to His saying the Exalted: .