The Shaykh’s clarification of the correct view regarding the understanding of this hadith: the correct understanding and the clarification of the true view concerning the distance that permits shortening the prayer.

The Shaykh : So we say that, based on the explicit wording of this hadith, we do not adopt its implied meaning such that we would say that every person who leaves his town intending to travel and preparing for the journey, whether the distance is three miles or more or less than that, is a traveler. This is because we mentioned that this implied meaning is not what the narrator intended, nor could he have intended it. So what do we observe regarding the ruling on travel or the ruling for the traveler? It is that he must have intended to travel and prepared for it. So anyone who possesses this characteristic, it does not matter to him afterwards whether the distance was long or short. In my opinion, this is a clear matter. But as we have heard from them, dozens, or even hundreds of times, people doubt their own actions. One of them goes out for a leisure trip and it does not cross his mind that he is a traveler or that he has prepared as a traveler does. So when he takes the issue to be about the distance he covered, which is a long distance, many times greater than this distance, he considers his state to be that of a traveler. Why? Because he covered a long distance. He says to you, "My brother, we walked for hours by car; we covered one hundred kilometers or more, or a little less. So why are we not travelers?" The answer is: leave the length or shortness of the distance alone. Look at yourself: when you left your town, did you intend to travel and prepare for the journey? If the answer is yes, the distance you covered does not matter to you. And the reverse is the reverse: if you did not resolve to travel and did not prepare yourself for it, even if you covered long distances, you are not a traveler.