Traveling on Friday

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate

 The default rule is that performing the Friday prayer is individually obligatory on every male Muslim. In certain situations, this obligation is lifted and it is permissible to perform the noon (zuhr) prayer instead. One of these situations is travel.

However, travel only excuses one from the Friday prayer if one travels before dawn. If one does not leave before dawn, the Friday prayer remains

obligatory, and travel is only permissible if one has confidence (i.e. deems it most probable) that one will be able to perform the Friday prayer on the way or upon arrival at one’s destination.[1] The books explicitly state that it is not necessary to have certainty: if one travels after dawn thinking it most probable that one will be able to perform the Friday Prayer on the way to one’s destination, and unforeseen circumstances prevent one from doing so (e.g. one’s car breaks down, as mentioned above), one would not be sinful for missing the Friday prayer and would simply perform the zuhr prayer instead. One should, however, take means to ensure that one performs the Friday prayer: in your case, you should make sure you find out directions to the mosque before travelling, and perhaps keep a phone number handy in case you get lost.

As a side note, it is mentioned in the Shafi’i books that traveling the night before Friday (“Thursday night” in English) is disliked if one does so in order to escape from the obligation of the Friday prayer.

(Mughni al-Muhtaj, 1.416,417; Tuhfa + Hawashi, 2.415-417)

And Allah knows best.  

Hamza

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[1] quote Reliance f18.6 and explain it; get people used to using and understanding Reliance