When Does Travel Begin? Custom Over Distance

Alhamdulillah. Continuing.

[Silence]

In in the chapter regard in the book of fasting the chapter regarding upon on whom fasting is obligated. We discussed yesterday some of the parameters of travel and we mentioned that it is not a distance thing. It is not a duration thing. And now we want to apply some of these rulings to fasting. First of all, at what point is a person considered to be a traveler? What is travel? Travel is not been defined clearly. It has not been defined or quantified in the Quran and Sunnah as being A or B. And so travel has been left to the customs of the people. Whatever is considered to be travel amongst the people of that time and place an area, this is what travel is because it it changes. If we were to quantify it by a duration, if we were to quantify it by a difficulty, if we were to quantify it by a distance, these things change with the change of technology. They change with the change of customs. They change with the change of even geography. And so really travel is whatever is considered to be travel in that time and place amongst that particular people anywhere anywhere. And so whatever the people generally consider to be travel that is what travel is. And when a person undertakes that they are a traveler by the def definition of the Quran and Sunnah and this is an important principle. It's actually a principle that all of the have come to a consensus upon and that is anything that has not been quantified by the Quran and Sunnah then it is left that way in order to be applied to the customs of the time and place where those you know those rulings are being implemented. The Quran and Sunnah it has been left this open-ended purposely and that is so that it will fit every people and every time and every place. So, so a travel and a traveler and travel distance or what have you is whatever the people of a particular time and place view to be travel and it is travel right. Imagine with me for instance if here in Tucson, imagine with me Phoenix. Now imagine if we customarily were a kind of satellite town to Phoenix and all of us, most of us worked in Phoenix. Okay. And so the custom of people here is that every morning most of the town of or the city of Tucson empties out and goes to Phoenix every day. This is just a normal thing. We've got trains that go there. We've got everything that goes there. It's it's it's almost the two cities are one. Would we consider that to be travel? No, we wouldn't consider that to be travel in that instance. Now imagine with me that we had another place that was closer than Phoenix. Pay attention here. The hypothetical that we're giving here is we've got Phoenix. This is a satellite town for Phoenix. We're always going to Phoenix every day. And then imagine with me another town that was closer than Phoenix, but we never go there. We only go there when we are going out of our way and traveling. It is possible that the closer place is considered to be travel whereas the further place is considered to be not travel. Is that strange? No. Because again this goes back to the customs of the people, the place and the time. And so for our intents and purposes now if we come back to the the reality of the situation, Phoenix is not a place that we usually go every day. This is not a satellite town to Phoenix. Phoenix is what 100 miles away or something like that. And yes, Phoenix is considered to be travel for us here in Tucson. because it is a place that is out of the way. It's a place that is. And so the point is is that travel is not defined by the Quran and Sunnah. It's been left open-ended purposely. Why? So that it can apply to each place and each time. Now when it comes to the rulings of fasting, the mere intention of travel allows a person to break his fast. So if a person were to have planned to travel today, they don't have to leave before they can break their fast. They are permitted to break their fast before they leave as long as they have the earnest intention that they are going to travel. So I wake up, I'm going to go to Phoenix for the day or I'm going to go to Flagstaff or whatever it is. And so I break my fast. I have breakfast at my home etc. and I get in my car and I leave. This is permissible. Not the case with with prayer. With salah it is the opposite. The intention of travel is not enough to break a per to to join prayers. A person must have embarked on his trip and a person must leave the city and be out of the parameters of the city that they are traveling from. At that point they can start to shorten their prayers. So u in There is a narration in which in the time of his was traveling and he had his entourage and his companions with him etc. and they were leaving the city. This is after the had moved to Iraq and the time for came in and they passed by a hus a hus is a shack. A shack a little shack. And this was on the outskirts of the city and someone a shepherd or whatever was living in this right. And when the time of came in, they stopped to make salah. And he said, he said, "Had it not been for this shack, we would have shortened and joined our prayers." What does he mean by that? This hosa is part of the city. It's part of the parameters of the city, right? And so he understands that traveling and shortening the prayer and joining the prayers only occurs once a person leaves the parameters of the city. So the scholars tell us the shortening of prayers and the joining of prayers begins once a person passes the last buildings which are part of the city. Right? The last buildings which are part of the city, this is considered to be travel. And it's very interesting when you look at things like travel and and how they apply to each place and each time. And it's honestly very thankful that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala had left it open-ended and left it to the customs of the people in New York City. They New York City is five burrows. Okay. So these five, they're basically cities. All these five are connected together and they all make up one city. You could get on a train and go from one burrow to the next and if it's a slow day or a weekend or the train is running local. You could be on that train for hours and you're not considered to be a traveler, not amongst their customs, right? And you could get on a train and go to New Jersey and you are considered to be a traveler and it is shorter than going to Queens from Manhattan. Why? Because it is all back to the customs. It is not an issue of duration. It's not an issue of distance. It's an issue of customs. Right? So when it comes to fasting, you are permitted to break your fast as a traveler. When are you permitted to break your fast as a traveler? Once you have the intention of traveling. Once you are planning to travel that day. Right? And this is in line with the patterns of the Quran and Sunnah. Why? Because unlike salah where you can make it anywhere and you can make it at any time, fasting is an issue of eating. So if you're going to travel, there's not, you know, especially at the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, there's not just a restaurant everywhere you stop. There's not a place everywhere you stop. You need to eat before you leave. Otherwise, you're going to miss that meal. And so, Islam has permitted that a person break his fast upon having the intention of traveling. Whereas, when it comes to prayer, a person can make prayer anywhere. They can make prayer anytime. Therefore, a person must be engaged in travel and have started his travel and have emerged from the the parameters of his city or town in order to start with his shortening of his prayers and joining of his prayers. Now these are the five points of criteria for those whom fasting is obligated upon. Okay Muslim right those are the five. Now we discussed these in the past few days in detail but now what is the difference between knowledge and imitation? Imitation is what is the difference between knowledge and the scholars have all agreed that aid is not a person of knowledge. A mid is not a person of knowledge. If I were to read the words of a scholar without evidences from the Quran and Sunnah and follow that ruling that he gives me, this is called this is imitation. I'm imitating what he said. But this is not knowledge. Even if I've read a million fata, as long as I do not have the evidence. Evidence is the difference between a scholarship and is the difference between knowledge and what is the difference between aid and a scholar? A scholar knows the evidences. Aid does not know the evidences. So we want to now go and take these five things that we just heard from Ali who just read to us from we want to take these from the realm of into the realm of knowledge. So we want to mention the evidences for each of these five points which we will do.

[Arabic recitation]