1. Who counts as a “traveller” (musāfir)?
Distance: The classic minimum is about 78–80 km / 48–50 miles away from your hometown.
Timing: You become a traveller once you leave the edge of your city and remain one until you return.
2. How long may you keep shortening in one place?
Different schools set different “cut-off” lengths of stay:
School Maximum stay you intend before full prayers start
Ḥanafī 15 full days (not counting the day you arrive or depart)
Mālikī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī 4 days (20 farḍ prayers)
> Key idea: The moment you plan to stay longer than the limit, you pray full from the minute you arrive. If your plan changes later, the ruling changes with it.
3. two scenarios
1. Travelling 30 days in total, staying ≥15 (Ḥanafīs) or ≥4 (others) in one city
Once you intend to cross that limit in that city, you pray the full four-rakʿah format there.
When you travel again, you go back to qaṣr.
2. Travelling 30 days but never in one city more than 5 days
Ḥanafī view: Still a traveller the entire trip (never hit 15-day mark). You may shorten everywhere.
Other schools: If any single stop is 5 days, that is over their 4-day cap, so you would pray full in that city but shorten everywhere else.
4. What exactly is shortened and/or combined?
Fajr → (always 2) Not combined
Ẓuhr → shorten 2 ( combined with ʿAṣr)
ʿAṣr → shorten 2 (combined with Ẓuhr)
Maghrib → always 3 (combined with ʿIshāʾ)
ʿIshāʾ → shorten 2 (combined with Maghrib)
Combining rules: most scholars allow a traveller to pray Ẓuhr+ʿAṣr and Maghrib+ʿIshāʾ either at the earlier or later time. Ḥanafīs limit routine combining; many Ḥanafī travellers still combine in hardship situations.