the traveller, or something very close to it.

When he had finished and given the salām, my father said, “May Allah have mercy on you! Was that the prescribed obligatory prayer, or was it a voluntary act?”

Anas replied, “It was the obligatory prayer, and it is exactly how the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—used to perform it. He would say:
‘Do not impose hardship upon yourselves, lest Allah impose hardship upon you. A people did make things hard for themselves, so Allah made things hard for them. Their remnants are those who now live in hermitages and monasteries—monasticism they themselves invented; We did not prescribe it for them.’ ”

The next morning he said, “Will you mount up so that you may look and take a lesson?”

I answered, “Yes,” so they all mounted together. We came upon dwellings whose inhabitants had perished and vanished, utterly gone, their roofs collapsed over their ruins. He asked, “Do you recognise these dwellings?”

I said, “Indeed I know them well, and I know the people who lived here—these were the homes of …”