Advice of Scholars - WATANS FOR A SAFARÎ PERSON

The place where a person is settled or where he has settled his home is called a Watan (home). There are three kinds of watans in Hanafî Madhhab. The first one, Watan-i aslî, one’s real home, is the place where the person was born or got married or where he established his home with the intention of living there permanently. If he intends to leave the place years later or when something he expects happens, he has not settled there even if he lives there for years. If a person gets married at a place without intending to stay there even for fifteen days, that place becomes his watan-i aslî. He becomes settled there. When a person who has wives from two different cities goes to one of those cities, it becomes his watan-i aslî. He becomes settled in those cities. If his wife dies, that place is no longer his (real home), even if he has houses or land there.

The second watan is called Watan-i iqâmat, transient home. A place where one intends to stay continuously for fifteen days or more in Hanafî and for four days or more in Shâfi’î and Mâlikî, excluding the days of arrival and departure, and then leave, is called a Transient home.

The third kind of home, Watan-i suknâ, is the place where one has stopped, intended to stay less than fifteen days, or where one has lived for years though one may have intended to leave there a day after one’s arrival. A safarî person must always perform two rak’ats of the fard prayers in the watan-i suknâ. If a person arriving in a city or a village intends to stay there ten days and if after ten days he intends again to stay there seven days longer, he does not become settled.

Being in one’s watan-i iqâmat or watan-i suknâ does not  invalidate one’s watan-i aslî. Setting out for a journey does not invalidate one’s watan-i aslî, either. Being in a watan-i suknâ does not invalidate one’s watan-i iqâmat. But it invalidates one’s former watan-i suknâ.