Full Lecture Transcript (Cleaned)
Quick Recap From Last Week — 0:00
Last week I began the discussion about safar, and there is still much more to cover. A lot of people said the 45-minute talk was too long to listen to in one sitting, so let me give a one-minute summary from last week: safar is not a fixed distance — it is a state of mind. You are a musafir when you travel outside of your city to a distance that you and a reasonable person would consider travel. This means it is relative. You do not need to ask a sheikh "am I a musafir?" — you will know. And it is possible for two people to do the same journey and one considers himself a musafir and the other does not, depending on their culture and habit.
When Does Qasr Begin? — 1:00
The overwhelming majority of the Sahaba and tabi'un held one opinion: safar begins when you travel outside of the inhabited walls of your city. When you have left the final habitations of the city and your back is to it, you are going out — even if you can still see the city from a distance, but you have left the premises of your city.
There are numerous narrations from the Sahaba to support this. Some of the Sahaba, when they were about to begin a long journey and were going to break their fast during travel, would wait until they walked outside the city. One Sahabi, when he walked just outside the city walls, said to his servant: "Give me something to eat now." The servant said: "I can still see the walls of the city." The Sahabi said: "That doesn't matter — give it to me now. The safar has begun."
In our times there are no walls, so you use a bit of judgment — but the principle is the same. When you feel that you have left your city of residence, safar can begin and you may start doing qasr.
A Point About Praying Behind an Imam — 3:00
By near-unanimous consensus: if a musafir is praying behind a muqim (resident) imam, the musafir must pray the full four rak'ahs. The hadith says the imam is to be followed. Praying two is Sunnah, but once you join the congregation, following the imam becomes wajib — and we prefer the wajib over the permissible. So if the imam prays four, you pray four.
The opposite also applies: if the imam is a musafir and leads the prayer with two rak'ahs, he announces it, and those behind him who are not musafirin will complete the remaining two on their own.
How Long Can You Continue Doing Qasr? — 5:00
This is the big question. Let me divide it into two scenarios.
Scenario A: You genuinely do not know when you will return. Every day presents the possibility of you returning but you don't know when. For example: you're in an actual battle, moving here and there, uncertain every day. Or you're stuck in a city because of a snowstorm and don't know when the roads will open. In this case your ruling remains the ruling of a musafir, and you continue doing qasr. It is authentically reported that some Sahaba, including Ibn Umar and others, did qasr for more than six months while in such states of flux. Some Sahaba in the battlefield did qasr for two years, because they were never settling down — they were in an obvious state of flux.
Scenario B: You have a fixed intention to stay for a set number of days. Your company sends you for a three-month assignment. You're attending a wedding and staying for a week. This is the controversial case — and there are literally over twenty scholarly opinions on how long you can do qasr.
The Over Twenty Opinions — 9:00
The Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) never explicitly stated: "You may do qasr for X many days and then you must stop." What we have are derivations. For example, Ibn Abbas said: "I accompanied the Prophet for 19 days and we did qasr." So he derived from that: if I'm traveling for 19 days, I'll do qasr; if more than that, I won't. Other scholars said 17 days, 13 days, 12 days, 10 days, 3 days, even 1 day. All of them were deriving from the life of the Prophet — but they differed.
Out of over twenty opinions, essentially only two positions made their way into the established madhhabs:
- Hanbali / Shafi'i / Maliki: approximately 20 salah / 4 days. Beyond the fourth day, you are considered muqim and must pray the full four rak'ahs.
- Hanafi: 15 days. On the sixteenth day and beyond, you must perform the full salah.
Ibn Taymiyya's Position — 15:00
Then Ibn Taymiyya comes along and argues that none of the fixed numbers — 3, 4, 10, 12, 15 days — have a basis in the Sharia. There is no explicit statement from the Prophet, and to claim there is a fixed limit without evidence is to speak about the religion without authority.
Now, the implication of this is that you could potentially be a musafir for a long period of time. Some modern scholars who follow this position — including our dear sheikh — would say that a student sent by his government to study in another country for four years is still a musafir the whole time. Our sheikh said this explicitly and it is well-known in his fatawa. I heard it with my own ears.
That position is almost unprecedented and unheard of in traditional fiqh. And I respectfully disagree, even though I love and respect him greatly.
What is clear is that even Ibn Taymiyya himself would say: if you intend to stay in a city for one month, the safer position is to pray the full salah for that month. He is basically saying: use your common sense. The four-day limit or the 20-raka'ah limit seem too rigid — "what changes at the 21st rak'ah?" But equally, saying you are a musafir for six months is going too far.
Personal Position — 18:00
The way I personally live my safar: if I am "living out of a suitcase," I am a musafir. Five days in a city — for me that is complete safar. However, if someone goes and rents an apartment, enrolls their kids in school, finds out where the halal food is — even if they say "I'm only here for six months" — that is not safar anymore.
The psychological and practical frame is: are you even temporarily settling down? In my view, six months means you are settling down. You will have a car, know the restaurants, make some friends, build a social life. Whereas four or five days you might just be in your hotel bubble. Use that reasonable frame of mind.
So: if you want to stick to four days, alhamdulillah — that is the majority opinion. If it is a little more than that but you are genuinely traveling, that is fine too. As long as you are actually in a state of safar. That is what I agree with, insha'Allah.
Jama' (Combining Prayers) — 20:00
We talked about qasr — now let us briefly cover jama', which means combining Dhuhr with Asr and Maghrib with Isha.
The Hanafi position does not allow jama' for travel. They only allow it during Hajj at Arafah. They interpret the hadith about the Prophet combining prayers in Madinah in a very specific way (as "apparent combining" — praying one right at the end of its time and the other right at the start of the next). This is the classical Hanafi position, though I know many modern Hanafi scholars who now practice jama' given the weight of the evidence.
The other three madhhabs allow jama' for travel, for certain illnesses, and in the masjid during severe weather conditions.
However — and this is an important point — jama' is not the default Sunnah of travel. Unlike qasr, which is mustahab (recommended) by unanimous consensus, jama' is not mustahab. It is khilaf al-awla — meaning it is against the better default. If you do not do jama', you are rewarded for praying each salah at its proper time. The default is to pray each salah on time. Jama' is the exception, done only when there is a genuine need.
Ibn al-Qayyim explicitly states: the majority of musafirin get lazy and think jama' is the default of travel — but it is not. It was never from the habit of the Prophet to combine prayers whenever he was traveling. It was only done when needed.
So: yes, do qasr on the road. But once you get to your destination city and are staying there, pray each salah at its time — just shortened. Do jama' only when you actually need it — when you are on the road, in bad weather, in a medical situation, or some real necessity. That is the balanced position.