and Muzdalifah without fear or rain. All these hadiths indicate that he combined prayers within a single prayer time to relieve his community of hardship. Combining prayers is therefore permissible when not doing so would entail hardship that Allah has lifted from this community. This establishes, with even greater force, the permissibility of combining prayers because of an illness that makes performing them separately burdensome. Likewise, someone who cannot complete ritual purification at both prayer times without hardship may combine them, such as a woman experiencing non-menstrual bleeding and others in similar circumstances.

It is reported that ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb said: “Combining two prayers without an excuse is among the major sins.” Al-Thawrī transmitted this in his Jāmiʿ from Saʿīd, from Qatādah, from Abū al-ʿĀliyah, from ʿUmar.

Yahyā ibn Saʿd also transmitted it from Yahyā ibn Subh, who said: “Humayd ibn Hilāl narrated to me, from Abū Qatādah—meaning al-ʿAdawī—that ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb wrote to one of his officials: ‘Three things are among the major sins: combining two prayers without an excuse, fleeing the battlefield, and plundering.’”

Al-Bayhaqī said: “Abū Qatādah lived during ʿUmar’s lifetime. If he witnessed him writing this, then the chain is connected. Otherwise, this report becomes strong when supported by the first.” This wording indicates that combining prayers is permissible when there is an excuse, and ʿUmar did not distinguish one excuse from another.

Al-Bayhaqī said: “A hadith on this matter has also been transmitted with a connected chain back to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, but its chain includes someone whose reports cannot be relied upon as evidence. It is transmitted by Salmān al-Taymī, from Hanash al-Sanʿānī, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās.” End quote.