Explanation of the Book of Prayer and Its Times-10a

The reciter: 'Umar ibn Hafs narrated to us, saying: My father narrated to us, saying: Al-A'mash narrated to us, saying: Abu Salih narrated to us from Abu Sa'id, who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . Sufyan, Yahya, and Abu Awana followed him in narrating from Al-A'mash.

The Shaykh : He said, may Allah have mercy on him: "Chapter on cooling off before the midday prayer in intense heat". It has been established that it is preferable to perform the prayer at the beginning of its time in all prayers, but some prayers are excepted, either absolutely or due to a specific circumstance. The one that is excepted absolutely is the night prayer; it is preferable to delay it until the last third of the night, provided there is no hardship.
As for the one that is excepted due to a specific circumstance, it includes the midday prayer during intense heat. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded cooling off. Cooling off does not mean delaying the prayer from its time by half an hour or an hour; that is not cooling off, but rather the opposite of cooling off. This is because the coolness of the air at noon is stronger than it is afterwards, or, to put it more accurately, the heat of the air at noon is lighter than it is after an hour or an hour and a half. Accordingly, the prescribed cooling off is what came in this hadith: You know that in intense heat, the sun is vertical above the heads, and the shadow of a standing person does not appear until after a period of time has passed. Also, the small hills are not mountains whose shadows become clear as soon as the sun moves; rather, the small hills are such that their shadows do not become clear until after a long period.
In some wordings of the hadith: This is the prescribed cooling off: that the midday prayer be performed at the time of the afternoon prayer. This is the most preferable.