the twilight has vanished. (11) Mu'adh [bin Jabal] (12) and Ibn 'Abbas also reported the combination, and we shall mention their hadiths later. (13) As for their statement, "We will not abandon the mutawatir (mutually corroborating) reports," we say: We do not abandon them; rather, we specify (takhsis) them. Specifying a mutawatir report with an authentic (sahih) report is permissible by consensus (ijma'). It has also been permissible by consensus to specify the [general rulings of the] Book [the Qur'an] with a single-narrator report (khabar al-wahid), so specifying the Sunnah with the Sunnah is even more appropriate, and this is very clear. If it is said: "The meaning of 'combining' in the reports is that he would pray the first [prayer] at the end of its time and the second at the beginning of its time," we say: This is invalid for two reasons. Firstly, a report has come explicitly stating that he would combine them during the time of one of them, as we shall mention, and due to the statement of Anas: "He delayed Dhuhr until the time of 'Asr, then he descended and combined them, and he would delay Maghrib until he combined it with 'Isha when the twilight had vanished." Thus, this interpretation is invalidated. Secondly, combining is a concession (rukhsah); if it were as they described, it would be more restrictive and cause greater difficulty than performing every prayer within its own time, because performing every prayer in its time is more expansive than observing the two ends of the two times such that nothing remains of the time of the first except the duration of performing it. Whoever (15) reflects on this will find it as we have described. If combining were like this, it would be permissible to combine 'Asr with Maghrib, and 'Isha with Subh, yet there is no disagreement among the Ummah regarding the prohibition of that. Acting upon the report according to the meaning that first comes to mind is better than this artificiality from which the speech of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) should be protected. When this is established, the implication of the statement of al-Khiraqi is that combining is only permissible if he is traveling during the time of the first, so he delays it until the time of the second, then combines them, and al-Athram reported it from