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Fatwa CenterAttending a school camp will make him miss his prayers
Question
Assalamualikom
Inshallah I'm about to go onto a school camp for 3 days which is about 51.5km away from my house.
And unfortunately it won't be possible to pray prayers at time. My question is can I shorten my prayer when I'm doing qadah just before bed time or would I have to pray the full length of it?
p.s I'm in a non muslim country.
wassalam
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
First of all, may Allaah reward you for being keen on learning the rulings concerning your religion and for observing your prayers at their prescribed fixed time; may Allaah enable you to do good.
You undoubtedly know that the prayer is one of the greatest acts of worship as it is the relationship between a person and his Lord, and observing the prayer at its prescribed fixed time is one of the most confirmed obligations. Allaah Says (what means): {Maintain with care the [obligatory] prayers and [in particular] the middle [i.e. ‘asr] prayer and stand before Allaah, devoutly obedient.}[Quran 2:238]
Furthermore, it is not permissible for a Muslim to delay the prayer from its prescribed fixed time unless he/she has a sound reason as we clarified in Fataawa 90926 and 88690.
Even though travelling is a sound reason for shortening and combining the prayer, but the most preponderant opinion of the scholars 
is that it is not permissible for a Muslim to resort to this permission except if he travels 83 km or more, as we clarified in Fatwa 88506. Besides, travelling or anything else cannot be a sound reason at all for performing all the prayers together at one time or combine more than two prayers that are permissible to combine. Therefore, you should know that it is not permissible for you to shorten or combine the prayers by travelling the distance which you mentioned in the question. If attending that camp leads to delaying the payer from its prescribed fixed time, then it becomes impermissible for you to participate in it. Being safe about one’s religion comes in priority over all other benefits.
Finally, the two following matters should be mentioned:
1- The above rulings apply to a person whether he is in a Muslim country or in a non-Muslim country.
2- The prayers that one is allowed to combine are Thuhr and ‘Asr on the one hand, and Maghrib and ‘Ishaa` on the other hand, either at the time of the first prayer or the time of the second one.
Allaah Knows best.
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