As for whether the less meritorious prayer is valid wherever the other prayer is valid, the hadith neither affirms nor denies this. Nor was the hadith intended to explain when prayer is valid or invalid. Rather, the requirements to stand or sit, and when these requirements are waived, as well as the requirement to pray in congregation and when it is waived, must be established from other evidence.

Likewise, this hadith does not address whether a person with a valid excuse is credited with the full measure of his deeds; that must be established from other hadiths. The other scriptural texts have made clear that the full reward is granted to someone who used to perform the more meritorious deed while healthy and not travelling, not to everyone.

Other texts establish the obligation to stand in obligatory prayer, such as the Prophet’s words—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—to ʿImrān ibn Husayn:

“Pray standing; if you cannot, then seated; and if you cannot, then lying on your side.”

He also demonstrated the permissibility of offering voluntary prayers seated: when he saw people praying seated, he approved of their doing so. He himself would pray seated, in addition to offering voluntary prayers on his mount while travelling.

Similarly, other texts establish the obligation to pray in congregation. Each hadith must therefore be given its due: there is no contradiction or incompatibility between them. Only someone who makes them bear meanings they do not indicate, and fails to give them their due through faulty examination and interpretation, imagines such contradiction and incompatibility. And Allah knows best.