Is it permissible to combine prayers other than when travelling, and how should the Ibn Abbas hadith on combining without travel be understood?

Summary

In the narration of Muslim (705), Ibn Abbas states that the Prophet combined the noon and afternoon prayers in Madinah without fear and without travel, as he did not want to burden his community. Another narration from Muslim and the Sunan compilers negates fear and rain, while in the al-Bukhari narration (543) Ayub only says it may have been a rainy night. Some scholars take the literal meaning to permit a resident to combine without a particular need, provided it is not done continuously. Combining is also allowed with a valid excuse such as illness causing hardship, rain, extreme cold, strong wind and muddy roads. The cloudy weather interpretation is called invalid by al-Nawawi, and the formal combination (jamak suri) interpretation is rejected because it contradicts the narrator's statement.

Written in our own words from the original fatwa — check the source before acting on it.