Answered by Shaykh Ilyas Patel
I was having a discussion with a fellow muslim friend about the qasr prayer. He mentioned that according to the holy Quran we are suppose to do qasr only when we are on a journey and there is some imminent danger present also. (An-Nisa, Verse #101).
I told him that if something is not in Quran then it must be in
sunnah, to which his response was that there is no sunnah that contradicts Quran and if it does so then it must’ve been derived from some weak hadith. He also mentioned that Imam Abu-Hanifa had discarded all but 300 ahadeeth, as their authenictity could not be validated.
I am not sure about the source of his information regarding Imam Abu-Hanifa, but the verse in Quran does mention to cut short prayers when there is some imminent danger while travelling.
Could you please explain why we offer qasr prayer by only considering the distance of the journey even when there is no imminent danger present?
In the name of Allah Most Compassionate Merciful
The verse 101 in Surat al-Nisa, “And when you are going forth, travelling, in the land you would not be at fault if you shorten the prayer, if you fear that you may be afflicted by those who do not believe,” means if you fear that you may be harmed by the disbelievers the you can shorten your prayer. This is just intended as an explanation to the reality of the situation at that time of period and context. If one has no fear then too one can shorten ones prayer with scholarly consensus. The restriction of ‘fear’ in the verse was in the context of the situation of that time as it was a time of fear, so the verse was specific but the prophetic traditions established the general meaning. (Tafsir Jalalayn,Bayan al-Quran)
And Allah knows best