Shortening prayers is justified by travel alone and is not permissible outside travel. Combining prayers, however, is justified by need or a valid excuse. Whenever the need arises, prayers may be combined on both short and long journeys. They may likewise be combined because of rain, illness, similar circumstances, or other reasons, since its purpose is to relieve the Muslim community of hardship. Only one hadith reports that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, combined prayers while stopped during a journey. Hence, those who permit combining prayers—such as Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī and Ahmad—disagreed over whether a traveller who has stopped may combine them. Mālik prohibited this, as did Ahmad according to one of the two reports from him; al-Shāfi‘ī permitted it, as did Ahmad according to the other report. Abū Hanīfah prohibited combining prayers except at ‘Arafah and Muzdalifah.

The same applies to the three forms of Hajj: tamattu‘, ifrād and qirān. The position of the four imams and the majority of the Muslim community is that all three are permissible. A group of earlier and later scholars held that only tamattu‘ is permissible. This was the view of Ibn ‘Abbās and those hadith scholars and Shia who agreed with him. Some of the Umayyads and their followers used to forbid tamattu‘ and punish those who performed it.

The scholars have disagreed over the Prophet’s Hajj, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: did he perform tamattu‘, ifrād or qirān? They also disagreed over which of the three is preferable. Some adherents of Ahmad’s school believe that he performed tamattu‘ in which he came out of ihrām. Another group believes that he entered ihrām for ‘umrah and did not enter ihrām for Hajj until he had performed the circumambulation and ritual walk of ‘umrah.