“It is not lawful for a woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day to travel except with her husband or a man whom she is permanently forbidden to marry.”

And his statement:

“Allah has relieved the traveller of fasting and half the prayer.”

Nowhere in the texts of the Quran and Sunnah is travel ever restricted to one kind rather than another. How, then, could the ruling apply to only one of the two kinds of travel without Allah and His Messenger explaining this—when, in fact, their explanation encompasses both?

The same applies to dividing travel into long and short journeys, divorce after consummation into irrevocable and revocable divorce, and oaths into those that admit of expiation and those that do not, and similar cases. In these matters, Allah and His Messenger have attached the ruling to the general category shared by both, yet some people have divided it into two kinds: one to which that ruling applies and another to which it does not, without any evidence for this from the Quran or Sunnah, whether explicit or inferred.

Those who hold that these rulings do not apply to unlawful travel rely chiefly on Allah Most High’s words concerning carrion:

“But whoever is compelled by necessity, neither desiring it nor exceeding the limit, incurs no sin.”

A group of Quran commentators have held that “one who desires it” refers to someone who rebels against the ruler and whom it is lawful to fight, and that “one who exceeds the limit” refers to someone who attacks the Muslims—that is, those who wage war against them by engaging in highway robbery. They argue: “If it is established that carrion is not lawful for them, then other concessions are all the more so.” They also say: “If someone whose journey is sinful is compelled by necessity, we instruct him to repent and eat; we do not permit him to destroy himself.” This position is well known among the followers of al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad.