Can a Hanafi Follow the Shafi’i Opinion on Joining Prayers When Traveling?

Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Question: Scenario: Employers send one to a intense training program which is to run for three days (excluding the day one arrives and leaves), the training centre is beyond 50 miles. One finds it is difficult to pray on time and decides to follow the shafi madhab concerning joining prayers as a traveller.

a) Does one have to follow the shafi madhab in the rules of tahara, wudu and salat ?

b) Does one shorten prayers according to the shafi time limit of 3 days or does one stick to the hanafi time limit of 14 days?

Answer: Walaikum assalam,

In order for it to be permitted for one to take the dispensation of another school in any matter, one has to be reasonably sure, through sound means (such as learning from a scholar or reading from a text one is able to soundly understand) that your action is valid and proper in that other school, with all is preconditions.

When it comes to prayer, purification (tahara) is one of the preconditions for its validity. As such, both would have to be valid in another school for it to be legally valid for you to combine your prayers.

Mixing between madhhabs (talfiq) in a way that the action is not valid according to the position of any one of the maddhabs is invalid and impermissible. Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, Ibn Abidin, and others report scholarly consensus on this matter.

Pray each prayer within its time. Stay on wudu, wear footgear (khuffs), in order to be able to make wudu quickly, if necessary. If you cannot pray the sunnas, just pray the fard.

Keep in mind that this is the first thing we will be asked about on the Day of Judgment.

And Allah knows best, and He alone gives success.

Walaikum assalam,
Faraz Rabbani