For this reason, Imam Ahmad and other scholars, including a group of Mālik’s followers, held that two prayers may be combined when performing them separately entails hardship. Thus, a sick person may combine them; this is also the position of Mālik and a group of al-Shāfi‘ī’s followers. Combining Maghrib and ‘Ishā’ because of rain is permissible according to the majority, including Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī, and Ahmad.

Ahmad said: “He may combine prayers when he has a task to attend to.” Al-Qādī Abū Ya‘lā said: “If he has an excuse that permits him to miss Friday and congregational prayers, he may combine prayers.”

The position of the jurists of the Hijaz and the jurists of the hadith tradition—including Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ishāq ibn Rāhawayh, Abū Thawr, Ibn al-Mundhir, and others—is that combining two prayers is permissible in principle, but letting their prescribed times expire by delaying a daytime prayer until night or a night prayer until daytime is not permissible. A group of the jurists of Kufa, including Abū Hanīfah and others, hold that prayers may not be combined except at ‘Arafah and Muzdalifah. They also hold that if a person is unable to perform a prayer within its prescribed time, he postpones it beyond that time.

The view of those who instruct people to combine two prayers without letting their prescribed time expire is stronger than that of those who instruct them to let the time expire rather than combine prayers. For the Quran and Sunnah indicate that Allah has commanded that prayer be performed at its prescribed time and that prayers be carefully observed. As Allah Most High says:

“Guard strictly your prayers, especially the middle prayer.”

This verse was revealed