Jurisprudence

Fatwās of the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei (d.)

1- Travelers say their noon, afternoon and ‘ishā’ prayers for two rak‘ahs on eight conditions …
The seventh condition: it is not their job to travel. Therefore a shepherd, a driver, a captain or the like — although they travel to convey their own furniture — should say their prayers complete, except for the first travel — although it might be very long — during which they say shortened prayers.

1- Question: When should a traveler say shortened prayers?
Answer: On eight conditions …
The seventh condition: it is not their job to travel such as shepherds, drivers, captains or the like including who travel for their work.

2- Question: A person works for a company. It is a few years that he travels from his watan to his work place every morning and comes back in the evening. The distance is more than the shar‘ī one. Sometime he drives himself. Is he categorized as normal or frequent traveler?
Answer: In work place and on the way, he is ruled as a traveler.

2- Question: Should A person whose travel is a preliminary to their work, like clerks who travel to their workplace offer complete prayer and fast in their journey or is that ruling specific to those whose work is traveling like drivers and sailors?
Answer: A person who should travel as a preliminary to his/her work if they travel at least once every ten days to their workplace for their work, they say complete prayers and fast.

Explanation:
According to Imam Khomeini (q.), only people whose jobs are to travel — i.e. their job depends on travel so that it is not possible to do it while staying in a place and they do not have a fixed workplace like pilots, sailors, and cross-city drivers — say complete prayers and fast during work travels. Those whose job is not to travel — although they may travel every day to their work like teachers whose workplace is located in another city — say shortened prayer during travel for their job.

Explanation:
According to His Eminence the Supreme Leader (d.), those whose works are in another place and who travel to/for their works and do not remain in a place for ten days enjoy the same rulings as those whose jobs are to travel. Therefore, teachers, employees and workers who travel every week to their workplace and return (to teach or to accomplish their job respectively) should say complete prayers and fast during these work travels. However, for the students it is different as educational travels are not work travel unless education is considered as their job like an employee whose company pays him to study in a university.

3- Question: What is the ruling on large cities according to the late Imam Khomeini (q.)?
Answer: As far as extraordinary large cities — whose definition is determined by the common view — are concerned, the criterion for the beginning and the end of the distance is one’s own house. However, for intending to stay in a single place for ten days, a single place means one district of the city. (Now Tehran is an extraordinary large city).

3- Question: What is your ruling on a large city in respect of intending to reside/stay there at least ten days?
Answer: There is no difference between different cities, large or otherwise, in respect of the rule of a traveler taking it as one’s watan, or staying there for ten days; rather, by taking a large city as one’s watan without specifying a particular district and staying there for a while all the city is ruled as one’s watan. Similarly if one intends to stay ten days in the whole city — without intending to stay in a particular district — he says full prayer and his fast is valid in all its districts.

4- Travelers who want to stay in a place for ten days should say complete prayers although they also want from the beginning to go to the surrounding area within the city boundary or to go to nearby farms and orchards but in a way that it does not contradict staying in the place for ten days [i.e. people say those travelers have stayed there for ten days]. In case they pass tarakhkhuṣ limit but they travel less than four farsakhs, they should say complete prayers during the whole ten days provided that their intention is to do so only once and the journey, i.e., going and coming back, does not take more than two hours.

4-Question: While intending to stay for ten days in a place, can we make an intention from the beginning that we will leave this place to another one which is less than four farsakhs from the first place?
Answer: The intention of leaving does not harm that of staying if the intention of leaving the place — at which one intends to stay for ten days — for a distance less than the shar‘ī one does not destroy the ten–day stay, like leaving the place once for few hours during a day or a night or for several times provided that they do not exceed one third of a day or a night in total.

5- That one can say either shortened or complete prayers in Mecca and Medina is particularly valid inside Masjid al-Ḥarām and Masjid al-Nabī (s.) and it is not applicable to the whole Mecca and Medina. However, it is not specific to the original site of the masjids and applies to their whole current site after their enlargement, although it is a caution to do so only within the original site of the masjids. Therefore, travelers can say either shortened or complete prayers in the current sites of the masjids.

5- A traveler can say complete prayers in the whole cities of Mecca and Medina. This ruling is not specific to the Masjid al-Ḥarām and Masjid al-Nabī (s.).

6- In a travel, one should not offer the nāfilahs of noon and afternoon prayers, but as for that of ‘ishā’ prayer, one may say it in the hope that it is desired by shar‘.

6- In a travel, the nāfilahs of noon, afternoon and ‘ishā’ prayers cease to be mustaḥabb and they should not be offere