The Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) were extremely keen to apply the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) and teach it to those who came after them. This Hadīth is associated with a certain reason, as related in another version by Muslim; the Tābi‘i ‘Abdullāh ibn Shaqīq reports that ‘Abdullāh ibn ‘Abbās (may Allah be pleased with him) addressed the people one day after ‘Asr, till the sun set and the stars became visible. So, a man began to say to Ibn ‘Abbās (may Allah be pleased with him): "The prayer" i.e., he was reminding him of the Maghrib prayer lest its time might pass. Meanwhile, Ibn ‘Abbās kept silent and did not respond to him. The man repeated his reminder three times, and he did not respond to him in either of them. This continued till Ibn ‘Abbās said to him: "May you be deprived of your mother", a phrase the Arabs used to say by way of rebuke and criticism. Ibn ‘Abbās criticized him for his ignorance of the Sunnah of the Prophet and his frequent repetition. And he said: "Are you teaching us about prayer?!" He criticized him for reminding him while he did not forget it; rather, he intentionally delayed it, so as to teach them. Then, Ibn ‘Abbās clarified the reason for his delay of the prayer; that is the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) used to combine two prayers along with his Companions, performing both of them together. This apparently would happen in case of need. Perhaps Ibn ‘Abbās (may Allah be pleased with him) was speaking about some matter of concern to the Muslims, and if he had cut it off and prayed, the interest involved in that matter would have been missed. So, he delayed the prayer for a particular need he deemed important. It is related in a version by Muslim that he combined two prayers without being in a state of fear or on a journey. When he was asked about that, he said: "He wanted not to put anyone of his Ummah into hardship" i.e., he only did that to avoid putting anyone of his Ummah into difficulty; thus, he alleviated things and made things easy for them when needed. The Hadīth was taken to apply to the excuse of illness. So, if something happens and calls for that, as a rarity, there is nothing wrong with that, in accordance with this Hadīth. But, for this to be something familiar and usual, this is not permissible, as the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) is not known to have done so persistently. There are two ways to combine two prayers, according to what is conveniently possible: First: Combining two prayers at the time of the earlier one; for example, performing the ‘Asr prayer along with the Zhuhr prayer at the time of Zhuhr, and performing the ‘Ishā’ prayer along with the Maghrib prayer at the time of Maghrib. Second: Combining two prayers at the time of the latter one; for example, performing the Zhuhr prayer along with the ‘Asr prayer at the time of ‘Asr, and performing the Maghrib prayer along with the ‘Ishā’ prayer at the time of ‘Ishā’..