fasting. Refraining from fasting is thus like shortening the prayer: both are permitted to a traveler during stopovers within a journey. Praying on a mount, by contrast, is prescribed only while on the move. Moreover, Allah has linked refraining from fasting and shortening the prayer to travel as such. This differs from praying on a mount, for which there is no wording about performing the prayer in full; rather, there is an action, which does not establish a general rule. It is therefore akin to combining two prayers, which is permitted whenever there is a valid excuse. Likewise, an obligatory prayer may be performed on a mount during travel when an excuse prevents dismounting. Someone offering voluntary prayers needs to be able to continue doing so, which is not possible if he must dismount while traveling. If voluntary prayer is permissible while seated despite being able to stand, then it is all the more permissible for a traveler to offer it on his mount.

They would take some of the children along for Eid, just as Ibn ‘Abbās attended Eid with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, before he had reached puberty.

As for someone unable to attend the prayer with the imam, he is entitled to do what he can. In everything it commands, the Sharia distinguishes between those who are able and those who are unable. Someone who is able may not perform a commanded act without fulfilling its conditions, whereas a condition that someone cannot fulfill is waived for him. Thus, someone able to pray facing the qiblah, standing and in a state of ritual purity, may not pray otherwise. Someone unable to do so, however, prays according to his circumstances, in whatever manner he can: without clothing, facing a direction other than the qiblah, and using dry ablution, if that is all he can do. The same applies on Eid: if he cannot go out with the imam, that requirement is waived for him, and he is permitted to