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Fatwa CenterBeing on the road is not an excuse to delay the prayers
Question
I work at around 2 hrs journey from my residence. As I leave the workplace and reach home one of Asr/Maghrib is rendered qadha. Im hanafi so cant perform my Asr salat early, can not alight in the middle of the journey due to heavy rush, no placefor salat etc. What do I do please suggest.
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.
You are obliged to perform the 'Asr and Maghrib prayers at their prescribed fixed time and it is not permissible to delay them until their prescribed time has expired. The Prophet said: “Whoever abandons the ‘Asr prayer, his deeds of worship become void.” [Al-Bukhari] In a narration by Ahmad in his Musnad, it is reported with the following wording: “Whoever misses the ‘Asr prayer, his deeds of worship become void.”
The fact that you follow the Hanafi Mathhab does not mean that you are permitted to delay the ‘Asr prayer until its prescribed time has expired, and the Hanafi scholars themselves stated that it is disliked to delay the ‘Asr prayer until the time of yellowness of the sun; so, with even more reason, it is not permissible to delay it until its prescribed time has expired.
As-Sarakhsi [from the Hanafi School] said in Al-Mabsoot: “It is disliked to delay the ‘Asr prayer until the sun changes its color as the Prophet said: “That is the prayer of hypocrites: one of them sits until the sun is between the two horns of Shaytaan (Satan), and then he gets up and rattles off four Rak’ahs, hardly remembering Allaah in them at all.” Ibn Mas’ood 
said: “I don’t like to perform any prayer which I consider to be of any value if the sun becomes reddish (i.e. when it is near to sun set).” [End of quote]
Therefore, if you are able to pray the ‘Asr prayer at its beginning time according to the view of the majority of the scholars, which is when the shadow of everything is equal in length to the object itself, then you are obliged to perform it at this time, and we cannot find any excuse for you not praying at this time because of following the Hanafi Mathhab. The view that the time of ‘Asr is when the shadow of everything is equal in length to the object itself has been traced back to Abu Haneefah, and it is also the view of his two companions (Abu Yoosuf and Muhammad ibn Al-Hasan). For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 92052.
Moreover, the fact that there are no special places for the prayer is also not an excuse for you to delay the prayer as the whole earth is a Masjid. The Prophet said: “The earth is made a Masjid and a pure place for me [to perform the prayer wherever I am], so whenever it is time to perform the prayer, the people of my nation should perform it." [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]
Finally, if you are unable in any case to get out of the car or the bus to perform the prayer on time, then you should perform the prayer in the car [or the bus] as you are and you should not delay the prayer until its prescribed fixed time has expired. For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 82450.
Allaah Knows best.
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