What is the duration of shortening the prayer for the traveler?

The questioner : Is the time for shortening the prayer absolute?

The Shaykh : Does specifying the time for shortening the prayer mean by the journey?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : The journey in the Noble Qur'an and the Sunnah has no limit defined by stages it covers or days one travels in it. We all read in the Noble Qur'an, in His statement regarding the ruling concerning those who fast: . The point is His saying, Exalted is He: . Just as He mentioned illness without restricting it with a condition, so He mentioned the journey without restricting it with any condition. Accordingly, anyone who leaves the town in which he lives and resides becomes a traveler, because the word "travel" is derived from "exiting," from "isfar," which means exiting. So if the one intending to travel leaves his town with the intention of traveling, he is a traveler, whether the distance he intends to cover is short or long. The criterion for defining travel is custom and language, not covering specific distances, as most people do not know the distance a traveler might cover. This is the opinion that should be relied upon, and one should not confuse minds by specifying fixed distances for travel, because there is nothing in the Book or the Sunnah that can be relied upon with certainty. It is either that he intends to reside there or that he does not intend to reside there. If he intends to reside there, he exits the ruling of the traveler and takes on the rulings of the resident. If he does not intend to reside there, he remains a traveler, and the rulings of travel apply to him, such as the permissibility of breaking the fast in Ramadan, the permissibility of combining the known prayers, the obligation of shortening the prayer, and the like. However, one must pay attention to a matter that our righteous predecessors, may Allah be pleased with them, alerted us to. They did not say that if one stops in a town and intends to reside, he exits being a traveler with that intention. Rather, they used a more precise term than "intends to reside," which is: "resolved to reside." Therefore, following their example, I say: if the traveler stops in a town and resolves to reside there, he is a resident. But if he does not resolve to reside, he is a traveler. So we know that if he resolves to reside, what is the opposite? He did not resolve to reside; what is the form of this negation? We say: the one who stops in a town to attend to his affairs and resolves to reside, meaning he settles and relies on it, is a resident. But if he says, "Tomorrow I will travel, the day after tomorrow I will travel," and the outlines of the plan he should follow are not clear to him, he is hesitating, today, tomorrow, the day after, etc. This person has not resolved to reside because he is hesitant in his intention. So he remains under the ruling of the traveler, even if he stays for months. This is what came in the authentic narrations from Ibn 'Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, that when he went out on a military expedition after the death of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) toward Khurasan, snow fell there and the roads became impassable. He and the other warriors with him stayed on the journey, praying the shortened prayer for six months, until the roads opened up before them and they returned to their lands. This is what can be said specifically regarding travel and its definition. In summary, there is no evidence in the Shari'ah specifying the duration of travel or the duration of residence. What came regarding this is based on intention, meaning the resolution of intention, or the opposite of that. And this is sufficient, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, because I see people preparing for their affairs. May Allah protect you, and peace be upon you...


The Shaykh : This is one, and the other is a large one without much fat.
Sheep seller: As for the fat, there is a lot of it.

The Shaykh : We do not want fat, meaning we do not want one that has a lot of meat and little fat?
Sheep seller: In the second sheep, but as for the Naimi, it is as you see.

The Shaykh : Okay, a second sheep with a lot of meat.
Sheep seller: There is none like that here.

The Shaykh : We want a large one and a small one, meaning a lot of meat and little fat. What is the price of this one?
Sheep seller: Five hundred riyals.

The Shaykh : Five hundred, yes.