Chapter Four
Prayer of the Traveller
For a traveller – according to certain conditions – the 4-rak‘ah prayers are to be offered as qasr (i.e. shortened, or 2 rak‘ahs); these are three prayers: dhohr (noon), ‘asr (afternoon) and ‘isha’ (evening. The other two, fejr (dawn) and maghrib (sunset) stay as they are, i.e the traveller prays them as tamam (full). In addition, travelling affects the newafil (additional prayers): the daily ones and the one after the evening prayer are cancelled, although the latter may be offered with the intention of being required.
(A) The homeland (al-Watan) and its categories
483. As a term, the homeland, i.e. place of residence, may be divided into four categories:
a- The original homeland: which is the homeland of the fathers and forefathers, even if the person was not born in it or has not resided in it, unless he has abandoned it altogether.
b- Permanent homeland: which is the town that the person makes his permanent residence, such as the Londoner who makes Birmingham his homeland.
c- Temporary homeland: which is the town that is adopted as a residence for work or studying for a relatively long time, or while in search of security or for other reasons, as long as the person has not abandoned his country/town altogether. The criterion for specifying the time period follows the common custom.
d- Locational homeland: which applies to someone who has no homeland of the two categories (b) and (c) above and has been forced as a result of his circumstances to go from one place to another, such as the bedouins, or the employee whose job forces him to move regularly without knowing the exact period of time he is going to spend in any particular place; for people such as these their place of their residence is their homeland throughout the period they reside in it.
484. It is possible that a person has more than one homeland.
485. The son or daughter living with his/her family and depending on them for their living expenses follows, in the homeland matter, his/her parents, even after becoming separated from them, unless he/she abandons it (their parents’ home) altogether, quitting living in it. There is no difference if this parent has had a permanent, temporary or locational homeland –as far as the original homeland is concerned, the ancestry is sufficient to keep their original homeland.
486. The wife follows her husband’s homeland unless she intends to take a separate homeland, although normally the wife’s intention is to reside with her husband and live with him there; but she does not follow his original homeland unless the husband lives there, so if he takes her there with him for a visit, he must pray full prayers while she prays shortened prayers until she resides in it and makes it her homeland as well, according to certain conditions.
487. The homeland ruling is not nullified unless one decides to abandon it, which is deciding never to live in it and to leave it and reside in another place.
A person may be forced to abandon his/her homeland, such as the wife who has lived with her husband, outside her homeland, in a stable marriage without any fear (under normal circumstances) of leaving him and going back to her homeland as a widow or a divorcee; in this case she is regarded as compelled to abandon her original homeland although without intending to do so.
(B) When a state of travelling takes place
488. As far as the Shari’ah is concerned, a state of travelling takes place when the person intentionally covers the distance specified in the Shari’ah, which is eight ferasikh (sl. fersekh), which equals to 43.2 km (we shall call it shar’i distance).
489. There are two ways to cover the shar’i distance, which makes praying shortened prayers obligatory:
a- One-stage journey, which is when the traveller covers this distance in one go.
b- Combined distance, which has two forms:
1- Having the two parts of the journey equal, which takes place when the traveller covers half the shar’i distance going to the destination and the other half coming back, or covers more than the half in one or both of them.
2- Having unequal parts to and from the destination, such as if going to the destination is 18 km and coming back is 26 km, or the reverse; it is better in this case to combine both qasr and tamam.
490. There is no difference as far as the shar’i distance is calculated if the road is straight, bending, or circular.
491. The start of the calculation of the shar’i distance is from the last house in the town at the side he leaves from, and the end is the first house in the destination town at the side he enters from. The internal roads of the towns he crosses during his journey are to be counted in the shar’i distance, unless if he has things to do other than passing through, in which case the distance covered doing his other business is not counted as part of the shar’i distance.
492. The traveller must have the intention to cover this shar’i distance from the beginning of his journey, so if he covers a distance of less than that with the intention of leisure or searching for a missing animal, for instance, then decides to continue to another destination, the distance covered before his last decision is not counted as part of the travelling distance.
493. It is not conditional tthat the intention is completely voluntary, rather it is acceptable to be abiding by the wishes of others or to be accompanying them, such as the servant and children, provided that the others do intend to cover the shar’i distance.
494. If a person believes that he has covered the shar’i distance and so prays a qasr prayer, then he discovers that he is wrong, he must repeat his prayer as long as there is still time, otherwise he must offer it as qada’ outside the time. But if he believes that he has not covered the shar’i distance and so prays tamam, then discovers he is wrong, he must repeat his prayer within the time, but there is no qada’ if its time has already elapsed.
(C) Acts that cancel the travelling state
It was explained above that the travelling state as far the Shari’ah duties are concerned, i.e. which makes are things that may take place, stop it or cancel it, putting the person in a new situation; these things are called ‘qawati’ as-Safar’qasr (shortened prayers) obligatory, takes place when the shar’i distance is covered with the intention and firm decision to cover it and the continuation of this firm decision until the end of the distance.
However, there, which have three categories: passing through the homeland, staying in a place in a state of hesitation for thirty days, and the intention of residing in a certain place for ten days.
First: Passing through the homeland
495. If the traveller passes through his homeland while covering the shar’i distance, his journey has ended and he has to perform his prayers and fasting according to the residents' rulings. This is regardless of whether he does actually stay in the homeland or merely passes through it, or even goes around the houses along the boundary called hadd at-Tarakhkhos, i.e. the leave (to pray qasr) boundary. Therefore, if he knew from the beginning of his journey that he would not cover the shar’i distance before passing through his homeland, then he is not regarded as a traveller from the outset, so he must pray tamam from leaving his place of residence; but if he did not know and was surprised to find himself in - or was forced to pass through - his homeland, his journey has ended and he has to pray tamam and fast, whether what he has covered was the shar’i distance or less.
496. There is no difference, in terms of the homeland which ends the journey when passing through it, if it is the original, permanent or temporary homeland, even if he passes through it in a time other than the normal time of his living in it, such as the student who is residing in London to study if he passes through it during the summer holiday. However, the place of work which he does not live in does not end the travelling when passing through it for reasons other than the work itself.
497. If he decided, at the beginning of his journey, to pass through his homeland, within the distance, then after he has covered some distance on the road changed his mind, or something stopped him from passing through it, in this case he must pray tamam as long as the intention of travel was not set in his mind when he started his journey; he – if so wishes – can commence a new journey afterwards. The same ruling applies if he started his journey doubtful and hesitant as to passing through his homeland or not while covering the shar’i distance.
Second: The intention of residing for ten days or more
498. The ten days here equal ten days and nine nights if the intention takes place at the start of dawn or some time during the night before; however, if the intention takes place after dawn some time during the day, then he must count eleven days and ten nights; so if one’s intention of residing takes place at noon on Monday, one has to stay until noon of Thursday week (the second Thursday) so that a ten-day residence would complete.
When the traveller sets his intention to reside, his travelling state ends and he has to pray tamam and fast as if he is in his homeland, regardless of whether this affects the travelling state – if this takes place after covering the shar’i distance – whether the intention was like that from the start of the journey or if that takes place suddenly or due to compelling reasons, not to mention if it takes place after covering the shar’i distance and reaching a destination other than the homeland.
And if the traveller, when he started his journey, was not sure that he was going to set his intention to take up residence while covering the shar’i distance, this would not affect his travelling intention, so he stays on the qasr for as long as he has not made up his mind on actually residing there. Likewise, his travel is not affected if he sets his intention to reside in a place which he likes while he was taking a break then changes his mind and resumes his journey before he has prayed a 4-rak‘ah prayer as tamam.
499. He must have his decision firmly on residing for ten days, so a residence state does not take place with hesitation or with reasonable probability that things might come up to stop him from doing this. And if his intention of residence does become firmly established but something comes up to end it unexpectingly, or if he decides to end it even if for no compelling reason, it is allowed to be ended, in which case if he leaves the town immediately, then in general what he prayed as tamam and his fasting, if these took place, will remain valid, but if he does not leave immediately and stays for a day or more for some business or leisure etc, in this case there are several rulings, as we shall discuss in no. 506 and what follows.
500. When residing in urban places, he must stay in the place where he intended to reside throughout the ten days, so an intention of residence is not valid in two towns in which he spends one night in this and another in that; also it is not valid if he leaves the place of residence and travels a distance of more than the shar’i distance combined, neither during the ten days nor after them, if he wants to keep offering his prayers as tamam; but going out to the town’s farms or nearby villages is acceptable, if spending just an hour or two or more, provided that it is shorter than spending the night.
The same applies when residing in rural areas – he must stay in one place, then leave it and return to it. For every place, there are some boundaries that are commonly known, such as a mountain, a valley, an oasis etc, so if he leaves it and spends the night in another place, it would commonly be regarded as spending the night in somewhere other than the place of residence; the same if he leaves the boundaries of his area (of residence) by a shar’i distance.
501. The ruling regarding the single location of the place of residency makes no distinction between villages, small towns or large towns as long as it is commonly taken as one place. However, it must be noted that large towns/cities have three forms:
1- The town might have been small in its original form (in the past), then new districts were built on its edges, either in contact with it or gradually approaching contact; in this case these districts are regarded as a continuation of the town and an expansion of the lands around it, and the new suburbs are regarded as the same as the old districts of the town, i.e. part of the same town; so if the person resides five days in a suburb and five days in another suburb, the ruling of a resident for ten days in one town applies to him.
2- Two towns may lie one beside the other but separate from one another by their name and geography, but then the building expands in each of them until each extends in the direction of the other making their buildings come in contact and intermingled, as in Kūfeh and Najaf, Kadhimiyyeh and Baghdad and Manchester and Salford in Britain; nonetheless, they are not regarded as one town but they continue to be separate. In this case residing in one of them one day and in the other another does not make it a residence in one place for ten days, so the shortened prayers (qasr) must be offered and the fast must be broken.
3- In some cases, two towns have become attached to each other where one was once large and the other small, then the larger one overwhelmed the smaller one until the latter became commonly regarded as an annex to it and socially part of it, such as Beirut and the small villages which have become part of its suburbs such as Ghobeiri, Shiyyah and Borj al-Berajneh, so for the people the whole thing is now one city called Beirut, and similarly London with its suburbs that were once separate villages, such as Ealing, Streatham and Hackney.. In such cases the ruling regards all as one town, as in the first assumption.
502. If the traveller resides in a certain place for ten days but without the intention and firm decision to do so, in this case his travelling state does not end. For example, if he put a certain condition on his residence saying to himself: 'If it does not become colder, I shall stay in this town', then he stays ten days, in this case there is no consequence and he continues in the qasr state.
503. It is not a condition for the residence that ends the travelling ruling that the person has the prayer duty, so if a woman during her menses travels to a town with the intention of residence, and she becomes resident, so she must offer full prayers (tamam) when she becomes pure.
504. If the traveller resides in a town and prays tamam throughout the ten days, then after this he stays a while in his place of residence, here keeping on praying tamam, he does not need the intention of residence for another ten days, but he stays on tamam until he travels in any time he likes.
Also, after the elapse of the ten days, it does not affect his residence if he stayed in a place different to the one which he was residing in during the ten days, because the single location of the residency is conditional on the first ten days not the days that follow. That said, he must abstain from leaving and covering a shar’i distance so as to stay on tamam, so if he did leave and cover the shar’i distance, his residence ends and his prayer becomes qasr, or he has to set the intention anew.
505. If the traveller came to a town and did not decide to reside in it and prayed qasr, he has the right afterwards at any time to set the intention of residing if he so wishes, provided that he counts the period starting from his decision (to reside); so if he decides on the fifth day of his presence in that town to stay in it until the fifteenth day, he will be regarded as resident and he has to pray as tamam from that date, as was explained in how to count the ten days (no. 498).
And if he takes the decision to reside during the noon, afternoon or evening prayers, he must pray in full.
506. If he changes his mind from the intention of residence after praying a 4-rak‘ah prayer as tamam, in the time that is not qada’, he must continue to pray tamam for the rest of his prayers until he leaves the town on the day that he changed his intention or the days that follow. However, if he changes his mind from the intention of residence before praying any 4-rak‘ah prayer as tamam, his obligation will be qasr.
Regarding fasting, if he has prayed a 4-rak‘ah prayer as tamam as we mentioned, he must continue with his fasting and it is valid until he leaves the town; but if he has not prayed a 4-rak‘ah prayer as tamam, then except the day he is in, his fasting is not valid; and the fast will be void for the day he is in, if the change of the intention took place before zawal, but will be valid if after zawal.
507. If he changes his mind from the intention of a ten-day residence but doubts whether he has prayed as tamam so that he would continue to pray tamam, or whether he has not offered that prayer, he should regard himself as having not prayed a full prayer, meaning that he must pray qasr not tamam.
Third: Hesitation between travelling and residing
This takes place when a traveller who has covered the shar’i distance and arrived at a town or place but hesitated and failed to decide whether to reside in that place for ten days or to leave it, and he stays likewise without the intention to reside for ten days; in this case he should continue to pray qasr up to the thirtieth day, then he has to pray as tamam and to fast starting from the first hour of the thirty-first day, even if he wants to leave that town on that day, or after two, three or more days, without the need to set an intention for residence of ten days or more.
508. In order that this ruling applies to the hesitant traveller, he must stay hesitant in one town during the thirty days, so if, during that period, he goes to another town or travels the shar’i distance from it, even if not covered in one go, the succession of the thirty days would end and he must start counting again from the time he starts residing in one town. That said, the succession is not disrupted by leaving during the day to go to villages and nearby places that lie within a distance less than the shar’i distance without spending the night there.
And when the thirty days are complete and he starts to pray tamam, he keeps on praying tamam as long as he is in that place (where he is hesitating between travelling and residing); but when he leaves it by a distance equal to or more than the shar’i distance, the tamam ruling will no longer apply and he is a traveller again, praying qasr, unless he sets the intention of residing for ten days or he becomes hesitant again for thirty days, in which case he must start praying tamam on the thirty-first day. After the thirtieth day, leaving by a distance less than the shar’i distance without spending the night will not change his status, as we have mentioned for the person whose intention is to reside.
509. To count the thirty days, if it is from the beginning of the day at dawn or the night before it, in this case it is thirty days and twenty-nine nights; but if it is after dawn, then it must include the first and the thirty-first days, thus the total is thirty-one days and thirty nights. And when counting the thirty days, it is not sufficient to regard it as a lunar month if that month ends up less than thirty, but rather one must add another day to complete thirty.
(D) Exceptions in the qasr ruling
The exalted Shari’ah has excluded some persons who cover the shar’i distance from the obligation of praying qasr (shortened prayer) and kept them on the tamam ruling regardless of the distance they cover; this applies to two cases: the traveller undertaking a journey for sinful reasons or in disobedience (safar ma’siyeh) and the person who travels a lot (kathīr as-Safar). The rulings regarding these are as follows:
First: The sinful traveller
510. A person is regarded as a sinful traveller in the following situations:
a- His aim from travelling is to avoid performing an obligation, such as running away from a lender who is requesting the return of the debt, and the traveller is capable of paying it in the place of residence.
b- His aim from travelling is to commit a forbidden act, such as adultery or killing someone without the right to do so.
c- That the travel itself is forbidden for him, such as if he vowed not to travel on a certain day then he disobeyed and travelled.
511. If the person uses a misappropriated vehicle, such as a car he had stolen, to travel, in such a case:
1- If his usage is for the purpose of running away, in this case he must pray tamam.
2- If his usage is not for that purpose, in this case he is regarded as a traveller (prays qasr), although he has committed a sin by using a misappropriated thing.
512. Included under the sinful travel is every journey the aim of which is not regarded as reasonable, such as travelling to hunt animals for leisure, although it is not forbidden in itself.
513. One who is travelling for an aim in which both allowed and forbidden things are present is regarded as a sinful traveller, unless the forbidden aim is secondary and it is not regarded as a separate reason for travelling, such as if someone travels to work in a company knowing that he is going to shake hands with a woman (not one of his unmarriageable kinship), in this case shaking the hand is a secondary matter not sufficient reason on its own for the journey.
514. The person who is returning from a sinful travel should pray qasr if the return travel is a one-stage shar’i distance and the return travel is not forbidden as described above.
Second: One who travels a lot
We mean by this someone for whom the travelling is repeated to an extent that it becomes a permanent state, in which case he is called ‘kathir as-Safar’ or da’im as-Safar’ (travelling all the time); this applies to:
First: One whose job is travelling
515. What we mean by one whose job is travelling is someone to whom travelling itself is a job and profession, such as car drivers or aeroplane pilots and their assistants and others for whom travelling from one town or country to another is their profession and job, be it to take passengers or transport vegetables or merchandise etc. The ruling of such people is to pray tamam in the journey to the destination, and on the journey back from the destination and at the place they stay in, and fasting will also be valid.
516. It is not a condition regarding those whose job is travelling that travelling continues all year round; rather it is valid when travelling is a profession for a certain season (i.e. winter etc) in the year, or certain season (i.e. religious etc) such as pilgrimage, and his travel is not for a very short period, such as one or two weeks, but it has to be longer than that; or that the duration of each trip may be short but he does it so many times during the year, such as the guides who go to pilgrimage, ‘omrah and visiting the shrines many times every year, so much so that their job is regarded as travelling.
517. If the person whose job is travelling travels for something which is not related to his job, such as if he travels to take his family or furniture free of charge, or if he travels on his own or with his family to visit a friend or to work on some official documents, then if he is someone who has taken travelling as a permanent job, not seasonal, he must pray tamam during that travel as in his other travels; and if his job is travelling in certain seasons, the ruling regarding him is also praying tamam and fasting, if the journey takes place during his travel season not at other times when he does not travel.
518. It does not change the status of one whose job is travelling if he stops every now and then. However, the duration of any break or stoppage in his travel must be proportional to the distance of the journey he covers in his travel; so if someone who has the status of ‘one whose job is travelling’ travels from London to the sacred tombs during the seasons of pilgrimage, ‘omrah or visits will not change his status if he misses one or two travels during that year, while it may change it if his stoppage for one week or two weeks takes place if he is travelling between London and Birmingham, for example.
Therefore, the status of someone whose job is travelling does not – always – change if he stays in his homeland for ten days, or if he sets the intention of residing somewhere other than his homeland for ten days, as long as this is proportional with the nature of his job; so he must pray tamam the moment he commences his travel again, whether he resided for that period of time for a compelling reason or not, although it is better to combine both qasr and tamam on his first travel.
519. Someone who has just taken permanent travelling as his profession and started it, so that this status becomes his as would commonly be accepted and so that the Shari’ah consequences apply, this is not necessarily subject to the condition that his travel gets repeated a certain number of times, three times for example; rather if this status is valid for less than that, he should start observing the consequences and pray tamam. But if this status will not apply until a greater number of journeys have been completed, in this case he must wait until this has taken place before starting to pray tamam.
Second: One whose travel is a pre-requirement for his job
520. What is meant by these people are those who do not take travelling and moving between places as a profession or job like the car drivers or ships' captains, but they have profession other than travelling such as accountancy or repair, but they choose to practise it through travelling, not just from one base, or that the profession itself requires travelling and wandering, such as shepherds or wood collectors; all these professions involve travel, but the travel is not their profession. However, despite the difference in the nature of the job, the rulings regarding both categories are the same with all the details above, such as the seasonal job, transport of the family, residing for ten days and so on.
Anyone in this category must pray tamam in both his residence and travel and must pray like the person who is residing in his homeland.
Third: One who travels repeatedly to reach his work
521. The third case excluded from the qasr ruling applies when someone has to travel repeatedly and a lot in order to arrive at the place of the work that he lives from; this is when his residence is one town and his work in another and the two towns are separated by the shar’i distance and he cannot do his job unless by going to it a lot of times, in which case the status of ‘kathir as-Safar’ becomes valid; it is sufficient that he resides six days and travels to his place of work one day in a way that the total number of days in which he travels are four days in a month, whether separated over the days of the months and its weeks or occur close together in one part of it (the month), not to mention the person who travels in every day once or twice. The ruling regarding such a person is praying tamam and fasting at the place of work and on the way to it, back and forth, unless his place or work is a residence for him, in which case he must pray tamam at the place of work not on the way to it and back from it.
522. The status of travelling a lot must be something noticeable in his life, even if in a certain season every year, or for unusual reasons and continued for several months, such as for courses that takes six months for example. If this is not the case and travelling is repeated by him for an unusual reason over a shorter period of a month or two, for example, then he is not regarded as travelling a lot.
523. It is not conditional for the tamam ruling to be (only) when someone whose travelling is for production and profit, but this ruling is valid for someone whose travelling has been repeated even for matters other than work, such as leisure, studying, medical treatment etc.
(E) The start of the qasr ruling
Although the principle of counting the shar’i distance is from the last house in the town that the traveller is leaving, the ruling of qasr for the traveller does not start the moment he leaves the last house; likewise, he does not stay on qasr when returning to his homeland until he reaches the first house, rather for every town or place, even if rural, there is a boundary that the scholars call ‘hadd at-Tarakhkhos’ (the limit of leave) from which the qasr ruling starts and to which it ends. The details are as follows:
524. What is meant by hadd at-Tarakhkhos is an imaginary circle that radiates from the last house of the town to the point where the traveller disappears from view from the houses, or rather the point where the onlooker at the last house would see the traveller as a ghost-like body with undefined features; whether the traveller himself can still see the houses of the town or their clearly defined features , and whether he can still hear the call to prayer (athan) or not, is not relevant, because the parameter is the disappearance of the traveller from being seen not the disappearance of the town from his eyes. In addition, this criterion is based on flat lands on which the person stays visible until he gradually changes to a ghost-like body, so there is no importance in the disappearance of the traveller because he has gone down into a valley or entered a tunnel, where, were it not for the valley or the tunnel, he would still be seen.
Thus, the traveller, when leaves his town and passes the last of its houses, stays on tamam until he leaves this boundary (hadd at-Tarakhkhos), at which point he starts praying qasr; and on his way home, he stays on qasr until he enters the boundary and starts praying tamam.
525. There is no effect on the hadd at-Tarakhkhos if the towns are attached to each other, but the traveller should imagine that the land is empty without buildings then estimate this boundary as explained above and act accordingly. In this case, this might end at the beginning of the attached town, or in the middle, according to where the boundary falls.
Also, the dispersion of the houses in villages and their spread does not affect the way the last house is identified as the last of the houses of that town, even if it is on its own and at a distance from the rest of houses, but it should be at a relative distance that is not commonly regarded as being outside that town.
526. It seems that the matter of hadd at-Tarakhkhos is specific to travelling from the homeland and returning to it, so it does not concern someone who is not residing in a place other than his homeland for ten days, nor those hesitating for thirty days, who must start with the qasr ruling as soon as they leave the town, not waiting until they leave the boundary, although it is better to wait until they reach it.
527. If the traveller believed that he had passed hadd at-Tarakhkhos and so prayed qasr then he discovered that he had not yet reached it, in this case he must repeat the prayer; if he is still within the area of the boundary, he must pray it tamam, and if he is outside the area, he must pray it qasr; and if he does not repeat it within the time, he must offer it outside the time as qada’, according to its state at the time that it should have been repeated.
If the person returning to his homeland thought that he had entered the boundary or Tarakhkhos and prayed tamam then discovered that he was still outside it, he must repeat the prayer; if he is still outside the area of the boundary, he must pray it qasr, and if he is inside the area, he must pray it tamam; and if he does not repeat it within the time, he must offer it, outside the time as qada’, according to its state at the time that it should have been repeated.
528. To decide upon the obligation of the duty, a traveller must ascertain whether he has entered or left the Tarakhkhos boundary; if in doubt, he must continue to act as he is doing currently: if he was leaving and doubted that he had passed the boundary, he must stay on tamam, and if he was returning and doubted that he had entered it, he must stay on qasr.
529. If something takes place forcing the traveller to return and enter the boundary or Tarakhkhos after leaving it, he must pray as tamam until he leaves it (again).
(F) Shortcomings in the prayer of the traveller
The traveller might commit mistakes in the prayers he offers while travelling, offering a qasr prayer when it should tamam and vice versa; such shortcomings are detailed as follows:
530. If is duty is qasr (shortened prayer) but he prayed tamam (full prayer), one of the following situations will apply:
First: The act in contradiction to the qasr ruling was intentional and done with awareness; in this case the prayer is void and he must repeat it.
Second: The act occurs out of ignorance of the Shari’ah that makes the qasr obligatory on the traveller; in this case his prayer is valid.
Third: He knows that the Shari’ah makes the qasr obligatory on the traveller but he imagined that the Shari’ah meant a journey that did not include his, such as if he decided to cover half of the specified distance on his way to the destination and half on his way back and believed that in this way he must not pray qasr; in this case his prayer is valid.
Fourth: The traveller was unaware that he was on a journey and, for example, was still in his own town, so prayed a tamam prayer, then remembered that he was on a journey; in this case he must repeat the prayer. However, if his lack of awareness continued until the elapse of the time allocated for that prayer, there is no qada’ to carry out.
Fifth: The traveller knew that the Shari’ah made qasr obligatory on the traveller, but he was unaware of that ruling when he wanted to pray, i.e. he was aware of his travelling state, but unaware of the ruling; in this case the ruling is like the previous one.
Sixth: The traveller was heading towards a certain town but thinking that the distance was less than the shar’i distance so he prayed tamam, then he discovers that the distance is equal to the shar’i distance (or more); in this case his ruling is like the fourth case above.
531. If a tamam prayer was the duty of someone but he prayed qasr, his prayer is not valid and a tamam prayer must be offered, whether he realised his error within the allocated time of that prayer or after its elapse. There is one exception to this, which is the traveller who resides in a certain town for ten days but prays qasr out of ignorance of the ruling that the residing traveller must pray tamam; in this case his prayer is valid. The ruling of validity is also probable in the cases in which a person is ignorant of the ruling of tamam, such as sinful travel, to hunt animals for leisure or the other cases which are excluded from the qasr ruling to the traveller, making it his duty to pray tamam; although it is better to repeat the prayer.
532. If the time of an obligatory prayer has started and the person is in his town but has not prayed yet, then he starts his journey, which is for an acceptable reason (i.e. not sinful travel etc), and wants to offer the prayer in his travel when its time has not yet elapsed, he must pray it qasr. And if the time of an obligatory prayer has started and the person is on his travel back to his town but does not pray until he reaches his town when the allocated time of the prayer has not elapsed yet, he must offer it tamam.
533. If the traveller starts praying, intending, out of ignorance or lack of awareness, to pray tamam, then realises during the prayer that he must pray qasr, his prayer becomes void if his realisation takes place after starting the rokū‘ of the third rak‘ah; but if he realises this before that, he should complete it as two rak‘ahs and his prayer will be valid. If this takes place when he is standing in the third rak‘ah, then he must go down to sit and perform taslim without teshehhod, and his prayer is valid as qasr, then he performs the two sahw prostrations for adding a standing, as an obligatory precaution.
534. If the traveller missed a prayer during his travel, he must offer it as qada’ as qasr even if the qada’ took place when he was back in his homeland; and if the traveller wanted, during his travel, to offer as qada’ a tamam prayer which he missed in the homeland, he must offer it as tamam; this is because in qada’, it is the state in which the traveller was in when he missed the prayer, not when he is offering it later as qada’.
535. The traditional (mashhur) ruling is that the traveller has the choice between qasr and tamam when praying in the Holy Mosque, Mecca, the Mosque of the Prophet (sawa), Medīna, the Kūfeh Mosque and Imam hussein’s shrine, but it is an obligatory precaution to pray as qasr in these four places, and to abstain from tamam when the person does not intend to stay for ten days, or after hesitation for thirty days as explained – so he must pray tamam if he has the intention to stay for ten, or more, days, and on the thirty first day for the hesitant.
536. It is recommended that the traveller recites, after every qasr prayer, the following thikr thirty times: ‘Subhan-Allah, wal-hamdo Li-Llah, wa La Ilaha Illa-Llah, wa-Llaho akbar.’