Are boatmen residents or travellers?

Question

There is a group of boatmen whose custom is this: under the protection of some large populated town, adjoining the market, on the bank of a river, they buy a plot of land and pay the government kharaj (land tax) for that plot; they take a house — either rented or their own — in which their headman and their belongings stay; their mosque is there, in which they pray the five daily prayers, the Jumu‘a and both Eid prayers; if anyone dies, they shroud and bury him in that same town.

Answer

If such people stay at that place for fifteen days, then that place is their place of residence (watan al-iqama); as long as they do not set out from there with the intention of [covering] a distance of at least three days’ journey, they will pray in full (itmam) and will not shorten.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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