Salah when travelling

Society Religion & Philosophy
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What are the exact rules of praying whilst travelling? How many rakats do you pray and after what distance/stay do these rules apply?

I am heading for Umrah Insha Allah , stopping in Amman (23 hours), Mecca (7 days) and Medina (7 days), do I shorten my prayers during my stay in these cities?

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Re: Salah when travelling

First of all, let me clarify that for rules of praying while traveling applies when you are saying your own prayer. Hardly anyone says prayers individually during Umrah. Everyone does it in Jamaat. In Jamaat, behind local Imam, you are going to pray as you pray in hometown i.e. full prayers (I am talking about Fard prayers, off course).

Having said that, according to Hanafi maslak, this is the ruling.

  1. When you start your travel and now 48 miles away, your 4 rakat fardh (Duhr, Asr, Isha) prayer will become 2. You don’t have to pray sunnat but you have to pray Waajib (Witr).

  2. When you pray, you cannot combine prayers according to Hanafis. Shaafi combines Duhr and Asr and than Maghrib and Isha. Not Hanafi’s. Yo have to offer each in its own time.

  3. If you miss any prayer during travel and you want to do Qaza once you come back, you are still going to pray 2 rakaat even if you are back in your home town

  4. If you have Neeya’t of staying in a city for more then 15 days, you are local and do the prayers like local

  5. In your case, as your stay is less then 15 days in every city, all indivually offered fard prayers of 4 rakkat (Duhr, Asr, Isha) will become 2, no sunnat, you have to pray witr

Please pray for all of us when you are there

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Re: Salah when travelling

:jazak: Just to summarise what I have understood from your post, you shorten the fardh prayer to 2 rakats if you pray individually - no sunnats/nafals but witr. When you pray with jamaat you pray the full prayers (fardh) but do you still leave out the sunnat/nafals or do you have to pray these as you have prayed with Jamaat?

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Re: Salah when travelling

We dont pray Nafl and Sunnat in Jamaat, anyway. So the ruling is same for them, whether you prayed related Fardh in Jamaat or indiviually

Nafals, you can always leave out, be in travel or at home

Sunnat in travel is now up to you. You can leave them out. But if you choose to do that, you do full sunnat. (i.e. 4 Sunnat of Duhr does not become 2 Sunnat)

When one is going to Kaaba and Masjid Nabawai, one does not want to leave out anything because that is the reason you are going there. Lot of people perform lots of nafl, Zikr, recitation of quran and durood. I am sure that you will do the same thing.

There is a reason why I wrote the above paragraph in red. Above paragraph is not a ruling. That is just the practice of Muslims when they go for Umra. Also, when I said that "one does not want to leave out anything", I was talking about non-fardh prayers. For fardh prayer, performed individually, shortening 4 rakaat to 2 rakaat become "FARDH" in travel. Its not an option to shorten them, its an obligation. Just keep that in mind, please

Please keep all of us in your prayers over there

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Re: Salah when travelling

Thanks for clarifying that. I was intending to pray the full prayers but remembered something being mentioned in masjid about it being compulsory to shorten the fardh prayers when travelling, obviously this doesn’t apply to prayers with Jamaat. Insha allah there should be mosques/prayer facilities throughout the journey for performing fardh with jamaat.

:jazak: - I shall remember you all in my prayers.