Shortening prayers while going to a school which is around ninty kilometers away from home


Question :

There are some students who go to study in a town/city away from their town/city of residence by nearly ninety kilometers. Knowing that they go and return back in the same day, may they shorten the prayers?

Answer :

His excellence responded saying:

I view that they do not shorten the prayer; being that this is not a journey.  This is because they have breakfast in their homes, and they have supper in their homes.

While it is held by some of the scholars who determine the journey according to a (specific) distance, that they say: the distance in which (the prayer is) shortened is eighty one kilometers, or eighty three kilometers.  (If this is the distance of their journey) they may shorten (the prayer) being that they are travelers based upon their statement.
However, I do not hold that they (shorten the prayer), and it is upon them to complete the prayer (i.e. Four units), and the matter is simple.  It is an increase of two units to the prayer, in which there is no harm and does not cause fatigue.

Reference: Majmoo’ Fatawa wa Risaail- Ibn Uthaymeen (Question No. 1099)

Answered by : The noble Shaykh Muhammad bin Salih al-Uthaymeen –may Allaah have mercy upon him-

Complied by : Noble brother Abu ‘Atiyah Mahmood bin Muhammad