one barīd. What difference is there between the people of Mecca travelling to Arafah and other Muslims travelling an equivalent distance from their own towns? Allah has permitted only travellers to pray two units of prayer, so it follows that they were travellers. A resident praying behind a traveller must pray four units, as the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, told the people of Mecca while in Mecca:

“Complete your prayers, for we are travellers.”

This is the position of the four imams and other scholars, although there is disagreement within Mālik’s school.

The second proof:

He prohibited a woman from travelling without a mahram—a male relative whom she can never lawfully marry—or her husband. Sometimes he specified a limit, and sometimes he left the prohibition unrestricted. The shortest distance reported in narrations specifying a limit is one barīd. This indicates that travelling one barīd can constitute a journey, just as travelling for three days, two days, or one day can constitute a journey. These hadiths do not imply that other journeys are exempt; rather, he prohibited each of these.

The third proof:

The Lawgiver has not defined a limit for travel, nor does the language assign it a fixed limit. Its meaning therefore rests on what people recognize and customarily regard as travel: whatever they consider travel is travel. A traveller intends to reach his destination and return home. The minimum is a day’s journey, half spent going and half returning; the one-way distance is thus one barīd. Jurists have used this distance as a threshold in matters of “testimony concerning another witness’s testimony,” “a judge’s letter to another judge,” “summoning a litigant,” “child custody,” and other matters explained in their respective discussions. This is one of the two positions within Ahmad’s school. Thus, if the distance were