Download
0 / 0
3550522/03/2014

He is going to work on a cruise ship and is asking how he can pray when he is always travelling

Question: 191555

Im going to work in a cruise and I’d like to know how can I pray, because my work is traveling.

I can skip the prays? I can pray only two rakats each prayer?

How I can find Qiblah if the cruise all the time changing the direction?

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family.

It is Sunnah for the one who is traveling by sea or by land
to shorten the four-rak‘ah prayers to two rak‘ahs whilst travelling. It is
also Sunnah for him to put prayers together when he needs to. For more
information, please see the answer to question no. 98574
and 111916.

With regard to determining the direction of the qiblah, that
is not difficult nowadays, with the availability of modern devices that will
determine the direction, such as compasses and the like. 

He must pray facing towards the qiblah in obligatory prayers,
and he should turn as the ship turns to the best of his ability. This has to
do with the obligatory prayers. 

In the case of the naafil (supererogatory) prayers, he should
turn to face the qiblah at the beginning of the prayer, then after that it
does not matter if the ship turns away from the qiblah. It says in
Fataawa al-Lajnah ad-Daa’imah (8/121): 

Q: If the traveler wants to offer his prayer on board the
airplane or ship, or he could not find water and did not do tayammum, and
the time for prayer has come, and he does not know the qiblah, is it
permissible for him to pray? How should he prayed, and which direction
should he face? 

Answer: If the time for prayer comes on the airplane or ship,
the Muslim who is on board must offer the prayer that is currently due,
according to his circumstances and ability. If water is available, he must
purify himself with it. If he cannot find water, or if water is available
but he is unable to use it, he must do tayammum, if he can find dust or the
like. If he can find neither water nor dust, nor any alternative to dust,
then that requirement is waived in his case and he should pray according to
his situation, because Allah, may He be exalted, says (interpretation of the
meaning): “So keep your duty to Allah and fear Him as much as you can”
[al-Taghaabun 64:16] . He also has to face towards the qiblah, and turn
with the airplane when it turns to the best of his ability, in the
obligatory prayer. However, in a naafil (supererogatory) prayer he may pray
facing the direction in which the plane is traveling, because when
traveling, the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) would
offer naafil prayers atop his mount in whatever direction he was facing. It
is proven in the hadeeth of Anas that it is prescribed to face towards the
qiblah when starting the prayer in the case of a naafil prayer whilst
travelling. 

But in the event that a person is unable to find out the
direction of the qiblah and face towards it, and also fears that the time
for the obligatory prayer will end, then he should try his best to determine
the direction of the qiblah and pray facing that direction, and he does not
have to repeat the prayer if it later becomes clear to him that he was wrong
about the direction of the qiblah.

Source

Islam Q&A

Was this answer helpful?

at email

Our newsletter

To join our newsletter please add your email below

phone

IslamQA App

For a quick access to our content and offline browsing

download iosdownload android