away from the actual combining explicitly established in some of the hadiths concerning the combining of prayers while travelling. He adduced numerous arguments for this, discussion of which would be exceedingly lengthy. What I wish to draw attention to, however, is that he failed to notice that the statement, “so that he would not cause hardship to his ummah,” is explicit regarding actual combining. For the removal of hardship, in legal terminology, means the removal of sin and what is forbidden—as stated in al-Nihāyah—as in other hadiths where, were it not for hardship, the basic ruling would be that one is held accountable. An example is omitting the Friday prayer and congregational prayer because of rain or cold, as in the hadith of Ibn ʿAbbās: when he instructed the caller to prayer on a Friday to say, “Pray in your dwellings,” some people objected to this. He said: “It seems as though you disapprove of this. Yet one better than I did it”—meaning the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. “It is a firm injunction, but I disliked causing you hardship.” It was narrated by al-Bukhārī (616, 668, and 901), and Ibn Abī Shaybah (2/153) narrated something similar. He then narrated its version attributed to the Companion (2/234).

The hadith of Nuʿaym ibn al-Naḥḥām states: “The call for the dawn prayer was made on a cold day while he was wrapped in his wife’s cloak. He said, ‘If only the caller had announced: “Whoever remains seated incurs no blame.”’ Then, at the end of his call to prayer, the Prophet’s caller announced: ‘Whoever remains seated incurs no blame.’” It was narrated by ʿAbd al-Razzāq in al-Muṣannaf (1/501/1926), Aḥmad (4/320), and al-Bayhaqī (1/398 and 323). One of its two chains of transmission is authentic, and al-Ḥāfiẓ authenticated ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s chain of transmission (2/98–99). Its documentation and the lessons derived from it have already appeared in this volume under no. 2605.

It is well known that attendance at the Friday prayer and the congregational prayer is obligatory. Thus, once it is established in the Sacred Law that