The Tabūk Camp: Travel Prayer and the Opening Sermon

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

❧Twenty days, and the fiqh of shortening

The Prophet ﷺ stayed at Tabūk twenty days, and it is narrated in many books of ḥadīth that he prayed qaṣr, two rakʿahs in place of four, for every one of them, never once praying the full four. This produced a large early controversy: how long may one remain in a place and still shorten?

All four madhhabs, Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī, Mālikī, Ḥanbalī, hold that this ḥadīth applies only to a state of war. You cannot extrapolate twenty days from it; it is legitimate only when you do not know how long you will stay and the enemy may attack at any moment, in which case one may shorten for twenty days or even six months. Other scholars outside the four schools said it does establish twenty days as a limit for a traveller. Ibn Taymiyyah, with al-Awzāʿī, and Ibn Qudāmah leaning the same way, held there is no time limit at all, so long as you are genuinely a traveller: it depends on circumstance, not on a number. As for the fixed figures, the Mālikīs, Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs say four days, the Mālikīs counting not days but prayers, twenty ṣalāhs or fewer and you may shorten; and the Ḥanafīs say fifteen days, half a month.

The shaykh's own view is that there is no particular number: it goes back to your circumstance. If you are a bona fide traveller, living out of a suitcase, without a dwelling, it may stretch to five, six, seven days. But if you are at home, even two days is not travel: go to your parents' house and you are at home; a wealthy man with a second or summer house is not a traveller there either, because psychologically it is his house.

❧The sermon of the first morning

Al-Bayhaqī records in Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwah a khuṭbah the Prophet ﷺ delivered the morning the army reached Tabūk, narrated by ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir al-Juhanī. The shaykh is explicit that the chain is weak and that no law is derived from it, the Sīrah narrations were never preserved as rigorously as the rulings of Islam, yet some of its phrases are authentically reported elsewhere, and as a whole it is a rare window into how the Prophet ﷺ preached: three minutes in Arabic, every sentence worth a lecture of its own. He praised Allāh as He deserves, then said أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ، أَمَّا بَعْدُ, ammā baʿd being the fāṣilah, the marker between the opening praise and the substance.

❧The maxims

فَإِنَّ أَصْدَقَ الْحَدِيثِ كِتَابُ اللهِ, the most truthful of all speech is the Book of Allāh; وَأَوْثَقَ الْعُرَى كَلِمَةُ التَّقْوَى, and the firmest handhold is the word of taqwā (which may mean Lā ilāha illā Allāh, or any word calling to good); وَخَيْرَ الْمِلَلِ مِلَّةُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ, the best of paths is the way of Ibrāhīm (وَاتَّبِعُوا مِلَّةَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ حَنِيفًا); وَخَيْرَ السُّنَنِ سُنَّةُ مُحَمَّدٍ ﷺ; وَأَشْرَفَ الْحَدِيثِ ذِكْرُ اللهِ, the noblest speech is the remembrance of Allāh; وَأَحْسَنَ الْقَصَصِ هَٰذَا الْقُرْآنُ, the best of stories is this Qurʾān; وَخَيْرَ الْأُمُورِ عَوَازِمُهَا وَشَرَّ الْأُمُورِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا, the best of matters are those done with resolve, and the worst are the newly invented.

The best guidance is the guidance of the prophets; the best death is the death of the martyr; and the most blind of blindnesses is to go astray after Allāh has guided you. The best of deeds is what benefits you in this world and the next, and the best knowledge is that which is acted upon. وَشَرَّ الْعَمَى عَمَى الْقَلْبِ, the worst blindness is blindness of the heart. وَالْيَدُ الْعُلْيَا خَيْرٌ مِنَ الْيَدِ السُّفْلَى, the upper hand is better than the lower (a kināyah: the hand that gives is better than the hand that takes). وَمَا قَلَّ وَكَفَى خَيْرٌ مِمَّا كَثُرَ وَأَلْهَى, and what is little and suffices is better than what is much and distracts; even the wording is rhythmic.

The worst excuse is the excuse a man makes at the moment of death, and the most evil regret is regret on the Day of Judgment, يَوْمَئِذٍ يَتَذَكَّرُ الْإِنسَانُ وَأَنَّىٰ لَهُ الذِّكْرَىٰ. There are those who do not attend Jumuʿah save rarely, and those who do not remember Allāh save listlessly. Of the worst of sins is اللِّسَان الْكَذُوب, the habitually lying tongue. وَخَيْرَ الْغِنَى غِنَى النَّفْسِ, the best richness is the richness of the soul. وَخَيْرَ الزَّادِ التَّقْوَى, the best provision is taqwā (zād has no single English word: it is what a traveller packs for the road, said to an army crossing a desert with its literal provisions). وَرَأْسَ الْحِكْمَةِ, the pinnacle of wisdom is the fear of Allāh. And the best thing to settle in the heart is yaqīn, certainty.

Khamr is جِمَاعُ الْإِثْم, the sum and mother of all sin, all else follows the one who drinks. Women are a doorway of Shayṭān for men. The worst of earnings is the earning of ribā; the worst thing to eat is the property of an orphan. And the fortunate man is the one who takes a lesson from the mistakes of others.

❧The closing

To curse a believer is sin and to fight him is kufr, this phrase is in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, and to eat his flesh (backbiting) is disobedience, and the sanctity of his wealth is like the sanctity of his blood. Whoever asks forgiveness, Allāh forgives him; whoever restrains his anger, Allāh rewards him; whoever is patient at a calamity, Allāh replaces what was taken with better; whoever seeks to show off, Allāh exposes him; and whoever is patient, Allāh gives him more. Then he ended: اللَّهُمَّ اغْفِرْ لِي وَلِأُمَّتِي, "O Allāh, forgive me and my ummah", three times, and closed as khuṭbahs are closed: أَسْتَغْفِرُ اللهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ.