What is the criterion for combining prayers? And what is the hardship?
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The questioner : He says that some of the Tabi'un (the generation after the Companions) held the view of combining prayers, and he said: "I have a treatise on the rejection of the evidence for combining, titled: 'Refining the Ear by Invalidating the Evidence for Combining'?"
The Shaykh : What do we do if the hadith on this is explicit? And there are those who have gone to the permissibility of combining, so we...
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : May Allah detail the hardship?
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : May Allah detail the hardship?
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : I am telling you: No, what do you mean by no?
The questioner: No, it means... .
The Shaykh : When I tell you: May Allah detail the hardship? You tell me: No; what do you mean by no?
The questioner : It is another topic, I mean.
The Shaykh : But I am asking you, why do you not answer me? Or...The Shaykh : He is not asking, but he is being asked?! ...
The questioner : ... [Everyone laughs!]
The Shaykh: Yes.
The questioner : What is the hardship, I mean?
The Shaykh : The hardship that a person feels within himself. I do not have the ability to bring you anything more than what came in the Qur'an:[Al-Hajj 22:78] What is it? You are a group of Arabs and we are milk-drinkers, so we learn from you; what is the hardship? [Al-Hajj 22:78] What is the hardship? It is the thing in which, when a person falls into it, he finds hardship, he finds distress, he finds heaviness. What can I tell you more than this?
The questioner : ... Since the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) combined in Madinah... Do we understand that when the Messenger prayed this, he did not explain... the combining while he was in Madinah?
The Shaykh : If he had explained it with his words, the one who transmitted his actions to us, who is Abdullah ibn Abbas, would have transmitted it to us. But he did not say that the Messenger said, "After the prayer, I did such and such," and it ended there. But in many cases—as the scholars say: "The tongue of the situation is more eloquent than the tongue of speech." Who knows this tongue of the situation? It is the one who witnesses it. Therefore, it is said in the examples: "The witness sees what the absent one does not see." Indeed, this has come as a sound hadith from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him); so it is from the Prophetic examples. Ibn Abbas witnessed this combining, and when he was asked what the Messenger intended by it, he said: "He intended not to cause hardship for his Ummah (the Muslim community)." So he did not transmit a statement from the Messenger, but rather he transmitted his action, and mentioned what he understood to be the Messenger's goal from this understanding, which is removing the hardship from his Ummah.
The Shaykh : What do we do if the hadith on this is explicit? And there are those who have gone to the permissibility of combining, so we...
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : May Allah detail the hardship?
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : May Allah detail the hardship?
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : I am telling you: No, what do you mean by no?
The questioner: No, it means... .
The Shaykh : When I tell you: May Allah detail the hardship? You tell me: No; what do you mean by no?
The questioner : It is another topic, I mean.
The Shaykh : But I am asking you, why do you not answer me? Or...The Shaykh : He is not asking, but he is being asked?! ...
The questioner : ... [Everyone laughs!]
The Shaykh: Yes.
The questioner : What is the hardship, I mean?
The Shaykh : The hardship that a person feels within himself. I do not have the ability to bring you anything more than what came in the Qur'an:
and has not placed upon you in the religion any difficulty
وَمَا جَعَلَ عَلَيْكُمْ فِي الدِّينِ مِنْ حَرَجٍhas not placed upon you in the religion any difficulty
مَا جَعَلَ عَلَيْكُمْ فِي الدِّينِ مِنْ حَرَجٍThe questioner : ... Since the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) combined in Madinah... Do we understand that when the Messenger prayed this, he did not explain... the combining while he was in Madinah?
The Shaykh : If he had explained it with his words, the one who transmitted his actions to us, who is Abdullah ibn Abbas, would have transmitted it to us. But he did not say that the Messenger said, "After the prayer, I did such and such," and it ended there. But in many cases—as the scholars say: "The tongue of the situation is more eloquent than the tongue of speech." Who knows this tongue of the situation? It is the one who witnesses it. Therefore, it is said in the examples: "The witness sees what the absent one does not see." Indeed, this has come as a sound hadith from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him); so it is from the Prophetic examples. Ibn Abbas witnessed this combining, and when he was asked what the Messenger intended by it, he said: "He intended not to cause hardship for his Ummah (the Muslim community)." So he did not transmit a statement from the Messenger, but rather he transmitted his action, and mentioned what he understood to be the Messenger's goal from this understanding, which is removing the hardship from his Ummah.
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.