“We have not sent down to you the Qur’an that you be distressed.” (Qur’an 20:2)
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“Allah does not require any soul more than what it can bear. All good will be for its own benefit, and all evil will be to its own loss. “Our Lord! Do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake. Our Lord! Do not place a burden on us, like the one you placed on those before us. Our Lord! Do not burden us with what we cannot bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Guardian. So grant us victory over the disbelieving people.” (Qur’an 2:286).
The above verse is an often misunderstood verse. It is misunderstood to mean a personal life crisis. Notice the phrase: “Do not place a burden on us, like the one you placed on those before us our Lord!”
This is a reference to the Children of Israel.
“The example of those who were entrusted with the Torah and then did not take it on is like that of a donkey who carries volumes [of books]. Wretched is the example of the people who deny the signs of Allah . And Allah does not guide the wrongdoing people.” (Qur’an 62:5)
By not observing what Allah (swt) had ordered them and forbade them and by not applying laws to context, they made the law a burden for themselves. The donkey carries books, yet it has no grasp of their contents, and it does not benefit from them. In fact, the donkey is looking forward to having that weight removed from it.
The Shariah law is meant to be the path to victory. Notice the verse above also states:
“So grant us victory over the disbelieving people.”
In Arabic, Shariah (شريعة) literally means “a path to water.”
Allah does not require any soul more than what it can bear.
This is in regard to the Shariah. There is no aspect of the sacred law that is difficult for anyone to carry out. If there becomes a difficulty or a challenge, an ease or a dispensation is introduced.
So, surely with hardship comes ease. Surely with hardship comes ease.
(Qu’ran 94:5-6)
Certainly it is enough for the Creator to say something once. Yet, here there is a repetition.
This is not a redundancy. This is an example of (tikrār) for the purpose of confirmation, consolation, and emphasis. The repetition drives home the message of hope and divine assurance, making it absolutely unequivocal.
The above verse is understood by us that periods of hardship are followed by periods of ease. It is also understood in jurisprudence that difficulties create dispensations.
There are many examples in the Qur’an where a challenge or hardship may come and Allah (swt) grants an ease.
Eating something generally forbidden is an act of worship when faced with starvation.
“Ad-dararatu tubīhu al-mahzūrāt” (Necessity permits the prohibited).
“Indeed, He has only forbidden to you dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah. But whoever is forced [by necessity], neither desiring [it] nor transgressing [its limit], there is no sin upon him. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.” (Qur’an 2:173)
Key Points:
It provides an important exception: in a situation of genuine necessity where no other food is available to preserve life, a person may consume it without sin.
It lists four primary prohibitions: carrion (dead meat), blood, pork, and meat sacrificed to idols.
“And there is no blame upon you for that in which you have erred but what your heart intended. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful.” (Qur’an 33:5)
Exemptions due to honest mistakes and not intentional acts.
The following verse deals with the accidental misuse of names in adoption
- The key distinction is made between an honest mistake (akhta’tum) and an intentional act (ta’ammadat qulubukum).
- This principle is generalized in Islamic law. For example, if someone unknowingly eats pork because they were deceived or, it was mislabeled, they are not considered to have sinned.
There was a video circulating online that showed a father playing a cruel prank on him (who embraced Islam). Only telling him after the meal that he had eaten pork. The young man committed no sin. Only the father will answer for his evil. Anyone who thinks that by deceiving a Muslim in such a way has only deceived themselves.
Exemption Under Duress (Ikrah)
The following verse was revealed about a companion, Ammar ibn Yasir, who was tortured into uttering a word of disbelief while his heart was firm in faith.
“Whoever disbelieves in Allah after his belief… except for one who is forced while his heart is secure in faith. But those who [willingly] open their breasts to disbelief, upon them is wrath from Allah, and for them is a great punishment.” (Qur’an 16:106)
Exemption from using water for prayers.
“O believers! Do not approach prayer while intoxicated until you are aware of what you say, nor in a state of impurity—unless you merely pass through —until you have bathed. But if you are ill, on a journey, or have relieved yourselves, or been intimate with your wives and cannot find water, then purify yourselves with clean earth, wiping your faces and hands. And Allah is Ever-Pardoning, All-Forgiving.” (Qur’an 4:43)
The first point to notice here is that Earth is something purifying for Muslims. We do not view the world as something that in and of itself is filthy.
Some other schools of jurisprudence have attacked Ibadis by saying that we don’t perform wudhu or ghusl with water when there is the presence of wells. That is not true. The situation is evaluated.
Some schools may take a literalist approach. They take the part that says, “Until you have bathed” and “cannot find water” as the priority. So, if there was a man in a caravan who was intimate with his spouse and needed to perform major ritual purity and there is the availability of a well. That school may deem it necessary for that man to wash himself with the available water. Our school would evaluate the distance or journey to the next well or wadi. How many people are in the caravan? If it is deemed that water is more necessary for drinking and preservation of life, then it is used for this purpose and not ritual washing.
Should the whole tribe or group die of dehydration, so one man can wash his private parts?
A recent fiqh ruling.
A man asked about a condition where a person takes medications in the afternoon. This medication is necessary for him to take. However, the medication makes him excessively drowsy. This individual will usually sleep through the asr and the maghrib prayers. So what are they to do?
A man asked about a condition where a person takes medications in the afternoon. This medication is necessary for him to take. However, the medication makes him excessively drowsy. This individual will usually sleep through the asr and the maghrib prayers. So what are they to do?
Notice the above verse says:
“O believers! Do not approach prayer while intoxicated until you are aware of what you say.”
“Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship.” (Qur’an 2:185)
Shaykh Rashid Al Miskiri (h) had replied to the man with the following:
“Ibn ‘Abbas reported:
The Messenger of Allah (saw) observed the noon and afternoon prayers together in Medina without being in a state of fear or in a state of journey. (Abu Zubair said: I asked Sa’id [one of the narrators] why he did that. He said: I asked Ibn ‘Abbas as you have asked me, and he replied that he [the Holy Prophet] wanted that no one among his Ummah should be put to [unnecessary] hardship.)
Source: (https://sunnah.com/muslim:705b)
Thus, the man is advised to do 4 rakats of dhuhr immediately followed by 4 rakats of asr. When he wakes up, he has to perform 3 rakats of maghrib followed by 4 rakats of isha.
Delaying your prayer if you need to relieve yourself by going to the toilet.
Section on Disliked Acts in Prayer
“It is clear to you, O alert reader, that disliked acts of prayer are matters alien to its essence, and they are inconsistent with its Sunnah acts and its desirable etiquettes. They might distract one’s attention from his prayer. Thus, they should be abandoned to attain the reward despite the fact that there is no sin with the one who does any of them. Therefore, hold fast to the Sunnah and avoid heresy. The following are a number of reprehensible acts in prayer: 1 — Praying when one is resisting urine or stool. This is a disliked act because it disturbs one during prayer. Indeed, it makes one miss the greatest pillar of prayer, which is Khushū‘1. The proof was correctly ascribed to the Prophet (PBUH) when he forbade prayer while resisting the two akhbathayn, body wastes (urine and stool).2”
Source: ( pg 283 Shaykh Al-Muatasim Al-Mawali (Religious Studies Supervisor at Sultan Qaboos University). This book, Al-Muatamad (The Reliable Jurisprudence on Prayer)
2 3- Khushū‘ in prayer is to have reverence, consciousness and attentiveness. – ar-Rabī‘. Ḥadīth number 301. – ar-Rabī‘. Ḥadīth number 253.
So does this mean that bodily waste is more important than prayer or our Creator? Of course not. It is simply reasonable that one will not be able to give the Creator the proper focus and respect while they need to answer the call of nature.
Exemption from fasting in Ramadan and/or paying back the missed fast.
“˹Fast a˺ prescribed number of days. But whoever of you is ill or on a journey, then ˹let them fast˺ an equal number of days ˹after Ramaḍân˺.” (Qur’an 2:184)
“So whoever is present this month, let them fast. But whoever is ill or on a journey, then ˹let them fast˺ an equal number of days ˹after Ramaḍân˺. Allah intends ease for you, not hardship, so that you may complete the prescribed period and proclaim the greatness of Allah for guiding you, and perhaps you will be grateful.” (Qur’an 2:185)
There are among us in the Muslim community those whose hearts have become hardened and are often bereft of mercy, empathy, compassion. They recite Ar Rahman and Ar Raheem before the recitation of the Qur’an again and again and yet never seem to grasp concepts like mercy and compassion.
In fact, the most often repeated verses of the Qur’an are “Then which of the favors of your Lord would you deny?” are repeated 31 times after every description of Allah’s blessings and power. Where are these verses repeated? They are found in Surah Ar-Rahman (Chapter 55), a chapter titled: The Most Merciful.
So, in reality, those who seek hardship and difficulty with religion, it is they who are having a spiritual crisis. They possibly wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats wondering if someone somewhere is taking a dispensation that will create ease in their life.
We have seen such people and been among them. They never want to shepherd their own souls. They are too busy wanting to shepherd the souls of others and even then it is not with sincerity they only wish in the darkness of their hearts to see others fall short, to fail.
We know of Muslims afraid to eat soup in front of others in Ramadan when they are sick.
Muslim women who have menses in Ramadan are often afraid to eat in front of other people simply because of this attitude that some people have, as if Allah (swt) and his angels are not sufficient as witnesses. Authubillah min dhalik!
You will hear that taking an easy fatwa—legal verdicts or taking the easiest opinion is a sign of weak faith or a giving into your nafs (self/ego).
Even though, as we have seen above that time and time again that Allah (swt) has permitted ease in our faith and that he doesn’t want to impose difficulty upon us.
What these people (those who accuse others of having weak faith or taking the easy way out) is that they themselves may be having a disease of the heart.
Even in the Qur’an, where a man insults his wife by calling her ‘like the back of my mother’, such a heinous thing even then Allah (swt) gives dispensation after dispensation.
“Those who pronounce thihar (saying you are to me like the back of my mother) among you to separate from their wives-they are not their mothers. Their mothers are none but those who gave birth to them. And indeed, they are saying a dishonorable statement and a flat lie. But indeed, Allah is Pardoning and Forgiving. 1) And he who does not find a slave to set free-then 2) a fast of two months consecutively before they touch one another; and he who is unable -then 3) the feeding of sixty poor persons. That is for you to believe in Allah and His Messenger, and those are the limits set by Allah. And for the disbelievers is a painful punishment (Qur’an 58:2-4)
Cannot set a slave free? Then fast for two consecutive months.
Cannot fast for two consecutive months than feed 60 poor people.
Those are the limits set by Allah.
The Sunnah of Allah is to want ease for his servants.
As we have seen at the beginning of this blog post that Allah (swt) desires ease. This is the Sunnah of Allah (swt).
“This is the way of Allah (Sunnat Allah) with those who passed away before, and you will not find any alteration in the way of Allah (Sunnat Allah).” (Qur’an 33:62)
“Allah does not intend to make difficulty for you.” (Qur’an 5:6)
“He has chosen you and has not placed upon you in the religion any difficulty” (Qur’an 22:78)
“And Allah wants to lighten for you your difficulties” (Qur’an 4:28)
“Recite then only that which is easy for you.” (Qur’an 73:20)
“It is part of the mercy of Allah that you deal gently with them. If you were severe or hardhearted, they would have broken away from you.” (Qur’an 3:159)
So which of the favours of your Lord would you deny?
Ibadi fiqh of prayer when traveling.
You may be surprised to know that in our school the combining of the prayers is for the duration that a person is traveling from what is considered their permanent home. This even means for business or going to school overseas. So this could be for weeks, months or even years. There are some exceptions to this.
*Traveling prayer*
When traveling, prayers are a little bit different. Here are some rulings regarding prayer when traveling:
– The traveling distance: 12 Km
– There is no time limit for these rulings as long as you are not at home.
– When traveling, you pray the 4 Rak’a prayers (Duhr, Asr and Isha’) in 2 Rak’as, and this is *mandatory*.
– When traveling you can join Dhuhr and Asr (2+2) and Maghrib with Isha (3+2), and when joining them you don’t need to pray the Sunan Rawatib.
– Joining the (congregational) prayer is not mandatory, but they are recommended when actively traveling, and discouraged when staying at some place.
-When you find a congregation, you always follow the Imam. If he prays 4, you pray 4
When choosing an Imam, the priority is for the resident over the traveler, because otherwise he will only pray 2 in Jama’a
— If a traveler prays behind a resident, he prays 4
If a resident prays behind a traveler, he prays until the Imam finishes, but then he shouldn’t do Tasleem with the Imam but continue the 3rd and 4th Rak’a and only then he does the Tasleem
The 2 prayers can be joined normally, so after finishing Dhuhr, for example, a new Iqama is said and the Asr prayer starts.
There are two options when joining, you can join them at the time of the first prayer (Duhr/Maghrib) or join them at the time of the second prayer (Asr/Isha’) and in both cases the prayer is the same, it’s only about the time.
When you decide to pray Jam’ Ta’khir (the time of the second prayer), you cannot return home before praying the first prayer. For example: we are traveling, and it’s the time of Maghrib, and we decide that we will join them later with Isha’ at the time of Isha’. If the Maghrib time is out, and we return home without praying it, then we commit a sin by not praying a prayer at its time.
Another important issue is that we pray based on our current location and not based on where we used to be at the time of Athan, so if the time of Duhr started when you were home, but you traveled at the time of Duhr, you should pray it as a traveler, and the opposite is true, but as we said you should be careful about returning home after the time runs out.
Regarding the ruling about joining the prayers, first, it’s always allowed when traveling. There are distinctions when actively traveling (on the road/ moving) and staying (in a city/visiting someone).
We would like to give some practical examples:
1. Joining Duhr with Asr in a congregation: we are traveling. It’s time for Dhuhr. We decide to pray Jam’ Taqdeem with Asr (at the time of the first prayer), we enter a mosque, we find a normal congregation, what should we do? We should pray with the normal Jama’a 4 Rak’as, when we finish, one of us stands up and recites the Iqama, then another person leads 2 Rak’as of Asr.
2. Actively traveling: We were traveling from Muscat to Nizwa to visit the fort, before slightly before Maghrib time, when we reached Samail, it was time for Maghrib. We remembered that later we would be busy in Nizwa, so it’s better for us to pray Maghrib and Isha’ now (Jam’ Taqdeem), because we don’t know when we will pray later if we decide to pray Jam’ Ta’kheer, so we finally decide to join Maghrib and Isha’ at the time of Maghrib.
3. Staying when traveling: I am from Muscat and my family is in Nizwa, so I decided to visit them on the weekend, so during the weekend I am not home, but I am not actively traveling, so I have to pray Qasr, but it’s better not to join but to pray each prayer in its time.
This can be extended for longer time frames. For example: ‘Amr went to Russia to study for 4 years. He should pray Qasr as long as he doesn’t consider his place his stable home.
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Some say that Qur’an 4:101 only allows (not orders) halving the rakat when you fear for your safety during traveling. They also add that the verse says nothing about the length of the trip. So the main excuse for halving the rakat is the absence of safety.
“When you travel through the land, it is permissible for you to shorten the prayer—˹especially˺ if you fear an attack by disbelievers. Indeed, the disbelievers are your sworn enemies.” (Qur’an 4:101)
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We don’t see the argument against Safar prayer. While it’s true, in the verse it says you can pray Qasr if you fear the disbeliever, but it doesn’t say don’t pray Qasr in Safar. For us, this sounds like a logical error.
If one is looking for evidence, then there are many Hadiths. Among them is when the Blessed Proohet (saw) went to “Thil Hulaifa”, which is 2 Farsakh away from Medina ≈ 12 km, he prayed Salat Safar, and told the companions I came here to teach you Salat Safar, and all the other details on this topic is taken from different texts.
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Here is some of our evidence on this topic:
1- The Blessed Prophet (saw), performed Qasr in all his travels, and there is no piece of evidence that he prayed a full prayer when traveling, not even once.
The Hadith: “He used to shorten and complete his prayers, and fast and eat in his travels” is a very weak Hadith, and can’t be used as an argument, as said by Shaykh Saeed Al Qannoobi — May Allah bless us with his knowledge.-
2. The Hadith of Aisha May (ra) (The prayer was obligated two Rak’as two Rak’as in residency and travel, then the prayer was fixed in travel and increased in residency)
‘A’isha, the wife of the Messenger of Allah (saw), reported:
The prayer was prescribed as two rak’ahs, two rak’ahs both in journey and at the place of residence. The prayer while travelling remained as it was (originally prescribed), but an addition was made in the prayer (observed) at the place of residence.
Source: (https://sunnah.com/muslim:685a)
*note* Most Muslims are unaware that the shortened rak’ahs were initially the default.
3. “Ibn ‘Abbas reported that the Messenger of Allah (saw) said: ‘Upon the resident are seventeen rak’ahs, and upon the traveler are eleven rak’ahs.‘”
Source: (Musnad al-Bazzar. by Hafiz Abu Bakr Ahmed al-Bazzar )
Even though this specific hadith is weak, the numbers it mentions (17 for resident, 11 for traveler) are factually correct and are established through the consistent, practical Sunnah (Fi’l) of theBlessed Prophet (saw) and the consensus of the Muslims.
We know the number of rak’ahs not from a single statement, but from the Blessed Prophet’s continuous, witnessed actions:
For the Resident:
- Fajr: 2 Rak’ahs
- Dhuhr: 4 Rak’ahs
- Asr: 4 Rak’ahs
- Maghrib: 3 Rak’ahs
- Isha: 4 Rak’ahs
- Total: 17 Rak’ahs for the obligatory prayers.
For the Traveler:
The traveler shortens the four-rak’ah prayers (Dhuhr, Asr, Isha) to two rak’ahs each.
- Fajr: 2 Rak’ahs (cannot be shortened)
- Dhuhr: 2 Rak’ahs (shortened from 4)
- Asr: 2 Rak’ahs (shortened from 4)
- Maghrib: 3 Rak’ahs (cannot be shortened)
- Isha: 2 Rak’ahs (shortened from 4)
- Total: 11 Rak’ahs for the obligatory prayers.
Both of these two Hadiths are narrated by Imam Rabi’ May Allah have mercy on him.
Allah does not require any soul more than what it can bear
The Shariah law is neither a curse nor a burden.
However, ignorance of Shariah law is both a curse and a burden.
Dear seeker of truth do not make your ignorance a curse nor a burden. Seek knowledge.
Jabir said:
We set out on a journey. One of our people was hurt by a stone, that injured his head. He then had a sexual dream. He asked his fellow travelers: Do you find a concession for me to perform tayammum? They said: We do not find any concession for you while you can use water. He took a bath and died. When we came to the Prophet (saw), the incident was reported to him. He said: They killed him, may Allah kill them! Could they not ask when they did not know? The cure for ignorance is inquiry. It was enough for him to perform tayammum and to pour some drops of water or bind a bandage over the wound (the narrator Musa was doubtful); then he should have wiped over it and washed the rest of his body.
Source: (https://sunnah.com/abudawud:336)
May Allah Guide the Ummah.
May Allah Forgive the Ummah.
Prima Quran 