is not a shortened form of the four-rak‘ah prayer, as some maintain. In this respect, it is like the two Eid prayers and the like, as ‘Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, said: “The travel prayer, the Eid al-Fitr prayer, the Eid al-Adha prayer, and the Friday prayer are two rak‘ahs—complete, not shortened—as declared by your Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.”

Ibn Khuzaymah and Ibn Hibban narrated it in their respective Sahihs, and it has been fully sourced in Irwa’ al-Ghalil (638). This is what al-Hafiz deemed preferable in Fath al-Bari after relating the differing views concerning the ruling on shortening the prayer during travel, along with the evidence for each. He said (1/464): “What appears to me—and by which the preceding evidence may be reconciled—is that the prayers were prescribed on the night of the Night Journey as two rak‘ahs each, except for Maghrib. Then, after the Hijrah, shortly thereafter, they were increased, except for the dawn prayer.” He then mentioned the hadith of Mahbub, overlooked the corroborating narration of al-Marja, and said: “Then, after the obligation of the four-rak‘ah prayers had become established, they were lightened for travel when the aforementioned verse was revealed: ‘There is no blame upon you for shortening the prayer.’ This is supported by what Ibn al-Athir mentioned in Sharh al-Musnad: that the shortening of the prayer was legislated in the fourth year after the Hijrah.”

Contrary to the preceding hadith-based and juridical verification, some contemporary people of whims have taken a different view—among them Shaykh ‘Abd Allah al-Ghumari, known for his fondness for dissent and for prominence. It was said long ago: “The love of prominence breaks backs!” There are many examples of this; I mentioned some of them in the introduction to the third volume of the other series, al-Da‘ifah (The Weak Hadith Series), as well as throughout its hadiths.

We now have before us this new example: in his treatise al-Subh al-Safir (The Bright Dawn) (p. 12), he claimed under a heading, “The Prayer Was Prescribed as Four, Not Two,” and, in an attempt to mislead readers, cited three arguments for this: