I say:

These scholars did not specify a fixed distance for shortening prayers, whether measured by time or distance. Rather, they did not regard this kind of movement as travel, just as ʿUthmān regarded travel as a journey requiring provisions and waterskins to be carried. If they meant what ʿUthmān meant—that a person continues moving within an area where provisions and waterskins are [not] (1) carried, and is therefore like a resident—then they agreed with ʿUthmān. Yet Ibn Masʿūd disagreed with ʿUthmān over his performing the prayers in full at Minā.

If, however, they meant that the districts belonging to a city are treated as part of it, as al-Sawād is in relation to Kufa, and that a traveller is only someone who leaves one administrative district for another—as in the report of Muʿādh, “from one region to another”—then this is the apparent meaning. Hence Ibn Masʿūd said of al-Sawād:

“For it is part of your city.”

Just as the orchards and farms surrounding a city belong to it, they treated that countryside in the same way, however far it extended, without setting a distance limit. This is comparable to the makhālīf (administrative districts): places where deputies are appointed to represent the chief governor in the major city. The report of Muʿādh states: “Whoever leaves one administrative district for another.”

This is supported by what Muhammad ibn Bashshār narrated:

Abū ʿĀmir al-ʿAqadī narrated to us: Shuʿbah narrated to us: I heard Qays ibn ʿImrān ibn ʿUmayr relate from his father, from his grandfather, that he set out with ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, riding behind him on his mule, for a journey of four farsakhs, and Ibn Masʿūd prayed two rakʿahs for Zuhr.

Shuʿbah said: “Qays ibn ʿImrān told me this while his father, ʿImrān ibn ʿUmayr, was present. ʿUmayr was a client of Ibn Masʿūd.”