Islamic Fiqh > Udhiya and aqiqa > The aqiqa of the newborn > The wisdom of the 'aqiqa on the 7th day
Contents
Updated on 27 September 2026 at 3:52 AM
One sheet carries the wisdom of the seventh day of the 'aqiqa, then the number of the animals: two for the boy, one for the girl, with the harmony of the hadiths and the general rule grounding the difference.
Each opinion is reported as the sheet assigns it, with the cited hadiths, their stated grades and the referenced books.
Al-Dahlawi gives the reason for choosing the seventh: a separation between birth and the 'aqiqa is needed, the family being absorbed at the start with the care of the mother and the child, without being burdened then by a task that would double its occupation; many a man finds a sheep only with effort; had the law set it on the first day, the situation would have weighed on them; the seven days form a suitable interval, measured without excess.
The jurists agree that the girl's 'aqiqa is a single sheep. They differ over the boy: one sheep like the girl, or two? The Malikis hold a single sheep suffices, boy or girl, by the hadith of Abdullah ibn Abbas:
The Prophet slaughtered for al-Hasan and al-Husayn a ram, a ram.
sahih hadith, reported by Abu Dawud (2841)
by Malik's report from Nafi': whoever asked Abdullah ibn Umar for an 'aqiqa received it, and he slaughtered for his children one sheep each, boys and girls (reported by Malik in al-Muwatta 1069, a sound chain); and by Malik's report from Hisham ibn Urwa: his father Urwa ibn al-Zubayr slaughtered for his sons and daughters one sheep each (al-Muwatta 1072), in imitation of the Prophetic act and by analogy with the udhiya, where male and female are equal. Malik says: the rule among us is that one who slaughters does so for his child with one sheep each, boys and girls. The majority group, the Hanafis, the Shafi'is and the Hanbalis, holds that the sunna for the boy is two equivalent sheep, close or equal, and one for the girl, male or female allowed, by the hadith of Umm Kurz al-Ka'biyya:
I heard the Messenger of Allah say: for the boy two equivalent sheep, and for the girl one; it harms you nothing whether they are male or female.
sahih hadith, reported by Abu Dawud (2824, 2825) and Ahmad (27183)
by the hadith of Hafsa bint Abd al-Rahman from Aisha: "the Prophet ordered us to slaughter for the boy two sheep and for the girl one" (at-Tirmidhi 1513, Ibn Majah 3163), a sahih hadith; and by the hadith of Abdullah ibn Abbas: "the Prophet slaughtered for al-Hasan and al-Husayn two rams" (an-Nasa'i in as-Sunan al-Kubra 4545), a sahih hadith.
The girl counts half of the boy because the aim is the preservation of a life: the 'aqiqa resembles the blood money, each of the two being a ransom for a person; and because the boy received precedence in inheritance and the rulings, he receives it in his 'aqiqa. The boy's sunna can be fulfilled with a single sheep, the Prophet having slaughtered for al-Hasan and al-Husayn a ram each. The best choice: the male, the Prophet having slaughtered two horned rams; the 'aqiqa follows the course of the udhiya, whiteness of coat being preferred as in the udhiya, and fattening with good condition recommended likewise.
Ibn al-Qayyim lifts the apparent conflict between the preference hadiths and Ibn Abbas's hadith on the 'aqiqa of al-Hasan and al-Husayn: the hadith was transmitted in two wordings, "he slaughtered for them a ram, a ram" and "he slaughtered for them two rams"; the reporter may have meant two rams for each of them, the wording by meaning then spreading; their mother slaughtered for them two rams as well, the two hadiths being transmitted thus, one of the two rams coming from the Prophet and the other from Fatima: all the hadiths harmonize. Such is the Law's rule: Allah gave the male precedence over the female and set the female at half of the male in inheritance, blood money, testimony, manumission and the 'aqiqa, as at-Tirmidhi reported, authenticating it, from Abu Umama:
Any man who frees a Muslim man, his freeing draws him from the Fire: each limb of his for a limb of his; and any man who frees two Muslim women, their freeing draws him from the Fire: each limb of theirs for a limb of his.
reported by at-Tirmidhi, who authenticated it, from Abu Umama
and in the Musnad of Ahmad, from Murra ibn Ka'b al-Sulami, reported too by Abu Dawud in his Sunan: "any man who frees a Muslim man, and any woman who frees a Muslim woman"; the precedence thus runs in the 'aqiqa, all the more with the established sunnas that state it plainly. Ibn Rushd sets out the cause of the disagreement over the number: the jurists differed over it too; Malik holds one sheep for the male and the female; the sheet breaks off at this point.
Hold to this: one sheep for the girl, two for the boy by the majority, one sufficing in the Maliki view, the seventh day resting on a double wisdom, the family's respite and the ease of finding the animal.