eight kilometres) he is permitted to shorten the prayer.

Al-Khaṭṭābī said in Maʿālim al-Sunan (2/49):
“If the ḥadīth is confirmed, then three parasangs would be the limit at which the prayer may be shortened, yet I know of no jurist who holds that view.”

There are several objections to this statement:

1. The ḥadīth is indeed authentic, as has been shown; it is enough that Muslim recorded it and no one has criticised it.
2. A lack of knowledge that any jurist adopted it neither harms the ḥadīth nor prevents acting upon it, for failing to find something does not prove that it does not exist.
3. The view was in fact held by its transmitter Anas ibn Mālik (may Allah be pleased with him) and was issued as a legal ruling by Yaḥyā ibn Yazīd al-Hanāʾī, who related it from him, as has preceded. Moreover, it is established from some Companions that they shortened the prayer over an even shorter distance.
   • Ibn Abī Shaybah (2/108/1) narrated, through Muḥammad ibn Zayd ibn Khalīdah, that Ibn ʿUmar said:
   “The prayer is shortened for a journey of three miles.”
   Its chain is authentic, as I clarified in Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl (no. 561).
   • He also transmitted by another route that Ibn ʿUmar said:
   “I may travel for but an hour of the day and still shorten.”
   The chain is authentic, and al-Ḥāfiẓ declared it sound in Fatḥ (2/467).
   • He further reported (2/111/1) that:
   “Ibn ʿUmar used to reside in Mecca; when he went out to Minā he would shorten.”
   This chain too is authentic. It is supported by the fact that when the people of Mecca accompanied the Prophet—Allah bless him and grant him peace—out to Minā during the Farewell Pilgrimage, they themselves shortened the prayer.