Is it permissible to combine prayers because of the cold? Including a lengthy statement by the Shaykh regarding the ruling on one who doubts the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) or casts doubt upon the people of hadith by saying: “Did you see the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)?”

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, and may peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah. As for what follows, this is one of the tapes from the *Al-Huda wa al-Nur* series of scholarly lessons and legal rulings by our Shaykh, Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani (may Allah preserve him). We ask Allah to benefit everyone with it. And now, with the third tape after two hundred and one.

The Shaykh : We were speaking about combining prayers because of the cold. I say that combining prayers because of the cold is not mandated by any text in the Shari'ah that obligates the Muslim to do so. Rather, some scholars stated it based on deduction and independent legal reasoning, relying on some excuses for which texts have come, establishing that they justify combining the two prayers. It is known to everyone that this applies in travel, but our current discussion is about combining in residence. No text has come regarding the permissibility of combining in residence, except for the sake of rain or fear. This is as came in the hadith of Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: “The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) combined the Dhuhr and Asr, and the Maghrib and Isha, in Madinah, without travel or rain.” They asked: “What did he intend by that?” He said: “He intended not to cause hardship for his Ummah.” Here, the hadith benefits us with two types of combining: one relates to collective combining, i.e., in the mosques, and the other relates to individuals, and rarely relates to the congregation. As for the first type of combining whose permissibility is derived from the hadith, it is combining for rain; because he said: “The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) combined without the excuse of rain and without the excuse of travel.” This indicates to us that these two excuses are known to Muslims in general as justifying combining, but he wants to benefit us with something new, so he said he combined for other than these two excuses. They asked what it was, and he said: “He intended not to cause hardship for his Ummah.” This text: “He intended not to cause hardship for his Ummah,” can include other causes not explicitly mentioned, including what we were just discussing, which is the cold. And as I said just now, the cold is a relative issue; it differs between two people of the same age, but who are not equal in upbringing and background. One grew up doing jobs or professions that expose him to heat and cold, fatigue and exhaustion, while the other grew up in luxury, raised as a pampered, soft child. So they are never equal in example, even though, as we said, they are of the same age. Nevertheless, the feeling of cold differs from one to the other. If we take an example of extreme difference between a young man and an old man, the feeling of cold will also differ greatly or slightly. So here, the issue remains a relative one. If a person wants to combine for himself, and he is mindful of his Lord, and knowledgeable in his religion, and knows that he will find hardship in not combining, then he may combine under the circumstances we mentioned. The precision now lies with the imam who wants to lead the people, and the people vary in their feeling of cold. So he, and here is the crux of this speech, is the one who should gauge scrupulousness. I do not see any blame on him if he looks at his congregation who want to pray with him in his mosque and finds among them old men; I do not see any blame on him for combining for their sake, not for his own. But this requires jurisprudence and mindfulness of Allah. Therefore, I see that as long as this text from Ibn Abbas is established: “He intended not to cause hardship for his Ummah,” if the imam is a jurist and is mindful of Allah, and does not deceive the people with falsehood, but rather accommodates them with a Shari'ah-based policy, and finds it in the interest of the congregation to combine with them for the cold, then he may do so, as long as he fears Allah the Exalted and takes that dispensation that came in the previously mentioned hadith of Ibn Abbas. I say, if the imam is a jurist and mindful of Allah, otherwise he should fear Allah the Exalted, whether in negation or affirmation, in taking a dispensation or adhering to the default ruling. He should not combine where there is no dispensation, and he should not be strict where the dispensation is established. As happened two days ago in a mosque there, where the regular imam did not attend, so they brought forward one of the regular attendees of the congregational prayer. And I do not know, I mean, the extent of his knowledge, even if it were traditional school-based knowledge. But what happened was that the mu'adhdhin, after the imam prayed the Dhuhr prayer, immediately called the iqamah. I felt that he put the imam and some of the attendees under a fait accompli. And I feel, from my observation of his prayer, that this imam is of the Hanafi school, and the Hanafis do not permit combining in residence at all, nor in travel except at 'Arafah and Muzdalifah. So when the prayer was called, we heard a commotion, noise, and uproar. I personally did not understand anything, but I was very sorry for the lack of proper conduct of the people in the houses of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He. There was noise in the mosque; if this noise had happened in a coffee shop, it would have been a disgrace to the noisy people. How much more so when they are in a house of the houses of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He. For some reason, I did not understand what moved these voices. I do not know, Tamir, did you understand what the talk was about?
Tamir: Yes, one of the young men stood up and said that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) combined in the rain, so the old man started talking, saying that you do not know how the Messenger used to combine.

The Shaykh : No, I am saying before the prayer; after the prayer, I heard.
Tamir: I went out with you, and I do not know what happened.

The Shaykh : No, I am saying when the prayer for Asr was called, there was a commotion from the eastern side.
Tamir: About the same previous topic.

The Shaykh : The important thing is that I felt the imam was under a fait accompli. In my opinion, he should have been proud, if he wanted to fear Allah the Exalted, since he does not believe in the permissibility of combining for rain, and say, “My school does not allow me to permit combining; one of you should step forward.” But he submitted to the fait accompli and prayed. However, the second commotion after the prayer made me understand this reality that I had felt before. I heard one of them say to him, “O Shaykh, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: ” I did not hear the rest of the hadith, but I understood that this speaker was saying that combining in such a case is prescribed. I have not seen this imam except that he rose in a rage, as if he were fighting a disbeliever man, and from his rage he stood up and said to him.