Combining Prayers Without Doing So Out of Fear or Due To Rain | Shaykh al-ʿUthaymīn

Combining Prayers Without Doing So Out Of Fear Or Due To Rain | Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-ʿUthaymīn
The Questioner: O noble Shaykh, may Allāh bless us to benefit from your knowledge, when was the statement of Ibn ibn ʿAbbās (may Allāh be pleased with him): ‘That the Prophet (ﷺ) combined without fear or travel’ and should we act upon this ḥadīth or not?
Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-ʿUthaymīn: “This occurred while in Madīnah. This occurred while in Madīnah and the ḥadīth has been narrated as you mentioned: ‘without fear or travel’ And it has also been narrated as: ‘without fear or rain’ and this [wording] is more straightforward than the first wording because the statement ‘in Madīnah’ makes the statement ‘without travel’ unnecessary.
However, Ibn ʿAbbās -may Allāh be pleased with them both- was asked: ‘What did he want by that?’ Meaning why did he shorten and combine? He replied: ‘He wanted not to place any hardship upon his community.’ This indicates that combining is lawful if there is some difficulty or hardship [associated with not combining].
However, if there is no hardship or difficulty, then it is not lawful to combine because Allāh says in the noble Qurʾān: ‘Certainly, the prayer is enjoined upon the believers at fixed times.’ [Sūrah al-Nisāʾ 4:103] And the Prophet (ﷺ) set the times for the five [daily] prayers and he specified a particular time for when it begins and ends.
However, if an individual is subjected to hardship like the sick person who experiences difficulty or the one who experiences [urinary] incontinence or the one who experiences irregular menstrual bleeding or the one who is afflicted by a severe sleep disorder that he is unable to control; [if] he wants to combine ʿIshāʾ for example with Maghrib,
in order to sleep or other than this from the affairs that the scholars of jurisprudence have mentioned -may Allāh have mercy on them-, then there is no harm in this. What is important is that there is hardship and difficulty.
And from this is combining in order to pray in a congregation. So if we were to imagine that a group knows that when they will arrive they will go their separate ways and will not pray together in congregation and so they want to combine before going their separate ways, then there is no harm [in that].
And the evidence for this is that combining due to rain in an area; the intent behind it is to pray in congregation and if this was not the case then a person would just go to his family. And when the time for ʿIshāʾ comes he can just pray in his home. This is because he is excused due to the rain. Yes. Do you understand now?
So the intent is not to place any hardship upon the community and not to leave the door wide open for whoever wishes to combine or not to combine.”
The Questioner: So combining is connected to hardship?
Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-ʿUthaymīn: “It is linked [directly] to difficulty; yes and hardship."
Translated By: Abul-Layth Qāsim Mutiva