at noon in Medina, offering four rakʿahs, and led them in the afternoon prayer at Dhū al-Hulayfah, offering two rakʿahs. Behind him were multitudes whose number Allah alone could count. All had set out to perform Hajj with him, and many did not know how to pray when travelling, either because they had only recently embraced Islam or because they had not travelled before, particularly the women. They prayed with him, yet he did not instruct them to form an intention to shorten the prayer. Likewise, he combined the prayers for them at ʿArafah without telling them, before offering the afternoon prayer, “I intend to pray the afternoon prayer after the noon prayer.”

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In Allah’s Book and the Sunnah of His Messenger, travel is mentioned without restriction in connection with shortening prayers and breaking the fast. Scholars have nevertheless differed over the nature and extent of such travel. As for its nature, they have differed in two respects.

The first is its legal status. Some held that prayers may be shortened only when travelling for Hajj, ʿumrah, or a military expedition. This is the position of Dāwūd and his followers, with the exception of Ibn Hazm. Ibn Hazm said: “This was also the position of a group of the early generations, as we have transmitted through Ibn Abī ʿAdī: Jarīr narrated to us from al-Aʿmash, from ʿUmārah ibn ʿUmayr, from al-Aswad, from Ibn Masʿūd, who said: ‘Only someone performing Hajj or engaged in jihad may shorten the prayer.’

“It is also related that when Tāwūs was asked about shortening the prayer, he would say: ‘When we set out to perform Hajj or ʿumrah, we prayed two rakʿahs.’