- Permissible.
- Recommended.
- Obligatory.
Thus, travel undertaken to commit something prohibited is itself prohibited. Among prohibited travel is a woman’s travelling without a mahram.
A person’s travelling alone is disliked.
Travel for recreation is permissible.
Travel for the obligatory Hajj is obligatory, while travelling for Hajj a second time is recommended.
His statement, “a permissible journey,” excludes prohibited and disliked travel. Accordingly, if a person undertakes a prohibited journey, shortening the prayer is not permitted for him, because one travelling in disobedience should not be granted a concession. A concession is an alleviation and facilitation for the legally accountable person, whereas one undertaking a prohibited journey does not deserve to have matters made easy for him or to be granted concessions. He is therefore deprived of the concessions of travel: he may not shorten the prayer, wipe over his leather socks for three days, or break his fast in Ramadan.
Yet the remedy is simple: we say, “Repent to Allah.” If, while midway through a prohibited journey, he says, “I seek Allah’s forgiveness and repent to Him; I shall now return to my town,” then he may shorten the prayer on his return, because the prohibited journey has become permissible.
Imam Abu Hanifah, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, and a large number of scholars held that permissibility is not a condition for shortening the prayer to be allowed, and that a person may shorten it even during a prohibited journey. They said: This is not a concession, for his performing two rak'ahs while travelling is not a transformation from