What is the duration for which a traveler is permitted to shorten and combine prayers?

The questioner : Now, regarding the questions on the rulings of travel, we ask: What is the duration that permits a traveler to shorten and combine? If this question is asked, it might be repeated to you, or they might quote you, saying, "Now, O Shaykh, you are adopting a second opinion." I do not know what the answer is. Do you see the opinion of the majority? If we had heard from you before that...

The Shaykh : I have not known this change in myself regarding this issue. As for changing, of course, a person should not remain frozen in error if it becomes clear to him. But in this issue, I have nothing new. However, people speak a lot, meaning they attribute to me and quote every kind of statement that I did not say. Whatever is most distant from the truth or from reality is far better than the statement that is repeatedly quoted, saying that the speaker died, was buried, and his grave was walled up, large and high, while he was fighting it during his lifetime. In any case, I have no new opinion on the subject. The rulings of travel, whether in terms of determining the distance that makes one a traveler or not, or this traveler who travels or settles in a country and stays there for a few days—what are the days that make him a resident? All of this, I have no opinion on determining either matter, whether if he leaves, does he become a traveler simply by leaving and covering a certain distance, or if he stays in a travel destination, when does he become a resident?

The questioner : This returns to...

The Shaykh : ...to custom, to custom. And in this issue, I only find one who spoke about it with some confidence, as Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) did in a special treatise of his on the rulings of travel, which is printed in a volume under the title *Majmu'at al-Rasail wa al-Masail*. It used to be with me, from the edition of Sayyid Rashid Rida (may Allah have mercy on him). In any case, this is my opinion from the past until today, and I have nothing new. Perhaps the answer is clear to you.

The questioner : But O Shaykh, meaning custom is the custom of the country, meaning...

The Shaykh : ...the one who is in it.

The questioner : The one who is in it. How is the custom known?

The Shaykh : This is first. And regarding his stay in the new country, it returns to his intention and his purpose.

The questioner : Okay, O Shaykh, a clarifying question for the brothers. For example, a man is from an Arab country, so he travels with his family to his mother's country, and his mother has settled in this country where he is. He goes to his mother's and his maternal uncles' country, and they have a house there for his mother. He says, "If I arrive, the people of the country will be displeased with me. How can I shorten the prayer?" He says, "My intention is travel; I consider myself a traveler." They say, "Your mother has a house there."

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : So what is your opinion, O Shaykh?

The Shaykh : No, we say in many tapes, and I think they are available to the brother...Abu Layla : I give an example of two men who left one country and settled in another, and both are travelers in every respect. But the one who settled in the other country has a wife there; this one is not a traveler. Likewise, if he settles in his father's house or in his mother's house.

The questioner : From the time of arrival, he is considered a resident, O Shaykh?

The Shaykh : Yes, from the time of his arrival in his father's country or his mother's country or his other wife's country, he is a resident. But if he settles in his brother's house, the matter is not so, because there is jurisprudence observed in this distinction, and this is the jurisprudence that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) indicated in the well-known authentic hadith: . It is observed in the wisdom of legislating shortening and combining in travel that this traveler is usually busy, pursued by his works, attending to his needs, and so on. But this one who settles in his house, meaning in his wife's house or in his father's house or in his mother's house, there is no difference between the house he left and the house he settled in in the other country. But it is not so if he settles in his brother's house, for his wife is not a mahram to him.

The questioner : May Allah reward you. Uthman, when he excused himself with this...

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : Uthman, when he excused himself with this, said, "I have married." He replied to him, saying, "Likewise, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) has married."

The Shaykh : If it were permissible for us to argue, we would have argued with this, but this is a hadith that is not authentic. And it is authentic that Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him) would complete the prayer in Mina, but the reason for his completing it was not authenticated. Two narrations came regarding this reason, and neither is authentic. One is that he married there, and this would be a transmitted reason, because it says that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , or as it was said in the hadith. I do not say "as the Messenger said" because the hadith is weak and not authentic. The other reason, and perhaps this is more logically acceptable, is that when it was objected to him and it was said to him that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) stayed in Mina during the Farewell Pilgrimage and did not shorten, he answered that people from the Bedouins, meaning those who have no jurisprudence, are present in this place, this location, and they follow their imam, their caliph. If they see the caliph praying shortened, they assume that this is how the prayer was made obligatory. Therefore, he would complete the prayer. This narration is also not authentic in terms of its chain. So in reality, we say, Allah knows best the reason for Uthman's completing the prayer in Mina, while he knew that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did not complete it. We have no answer to what was mentioned above.