Missing a Prayer Due to the Traffic Jam

Question:

What shall I do if I missed prayer because of the traffic jam? I sometimes stuck in traffic at the time of Zhuhr or Maghrib, which means that I can find no way to pray on time. What are the best solutions in such cases? 

Answer:

In the name of Allah, we praise Him, seek His help and ask for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides none can misguide, and whoever He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright.

It is important to know that we are not allowed to combine Fajr Prayer with Zhuhr Prayer, or `Asr with Maghrib or `Isha’ with Fajr; rather we are allowed only to combine Zhuhr with `Asr (by praying both of them either at the time of the first Prayer or at the time of the second one). 

Likewise, we are allowed to combine Zhuhr with `Asr and  Maghrib with `Isha’ (by praying them both either at the time of the first or the second).

The permissibility of combining Prayers —besides travel, rain, snow storm, sickness, or war— extends to exceptional circumstances as well. Certain obvious examples are: when one is stuck in a traffic jam, or a surgeon is performing an operation lasting hours, or a person is working in an assembly line and cannot leave his job in time for each prayer, etc.

Praying in cars, planes, trains or other means of transportation, where one cannot face the qiblah (direction of prayer) or pray standing, is permissible only in the case of obligatory prayers if one fears that the time for the obligatory prayer will end before reaching their destination. But if one will reach the destination before the time for prayer is over, s/he should wait until they get there to pray.

For more information about missing a prayer while at the means of transportation and combining prayers, watch this interesting talk with Dr. Muhammad Salah.

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Source: Huda Youtube Channel.