The response to the doubt about slaughtering two sheep for a boy and one sheep for a girl in the Aqeeqah

 

Some malicious people raise a doubt that I did not find a sufficient answer to on the Internet, so I registered in this forum in order to convey what became clear to me after examining the subject carefully, on the authority

of Amr ibn Shu’ayb, on the authority of his father, on the authority of his grandfather, who said: “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was asked about ‘aqeeqah. He said: Allah does not like disobedience, and it was as if he disliked the name. He said: O Messenger of Allah, we are only asking you about one of us who has a child born to him. He said: Whoever wants to offer a sacrifice on behalf of his child, let him offer two sheep on behalf of the boy and one sheep on behalf of the girl.” Narrated by Abu Dawud (2842), al-Nasa’i (2/188), al-Tahawi (1/461), al-Hakim (4/238), al-Bayhaqi (9/300) and Ahmad (2/182-183, 194) on the authority of Dawud ibn Qays on his authority. Al-Hakim said: (Its chain of transmission is authentic). Al-Dhahabi agreed with him.
Sheikh Al-Albani, may God have mercy on him, said in Irwa’ Al-Ghaleel: I said: The disagreement regarding Amr bin Shu’aib is well-known and famous, and it is established that he is a good hadith narrator who can be relied upon. Ah, so


whoever looks into the hadith will see that the Sunnah is to sacrifice two sheep for the male, and one sheep for the female.

This extra sheep is not for differentiation and distinction between the sexes, but rather to take into account the right of the male in a matter that will be required of him in the future, which is slaughtering another sheep for the female upon marriage.

The Prophet, may God bless him and his family and grant them peace, ordered in the hadiths to have a feast with a sheep for the married man. On the authority
of Anas bin Malik, may God be pleased with him, he said: “Abd al-Rahman bin Awf came to Madinah, and the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, made a brotherhood between him and Sa`d bin al-Rabi` al-Ansari. Sa`d was wealthy, so he said to Abd al-Rahman: I will divide my wealth with you in half and marry you. He said: May God bless you in your family and wealth. Show me the market. He did not return until he had some extra curds and fat, so he brought them to his family. We stayed for a while, or as long as God willed. Then he came back, and he was covered with a yellowish tinge. The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said to him: What is it? He said: O Messenger of God, I married a woman from the Ansar. He said: What did you bring to her? He said: A date pit of gold or the weight of a date pit of gold. She said: Give a feast, even if it is…” With a sheep. Narrated by Al-Bukhari.


Therefore, we see that this sheep remains in the responsibility of the male until he slaughters it.

The difference between the two matters is clear and obvious

. The aqeeqah does not make it known whether the newborn is male or female, and he does not eat from it at all.
However, when the male grows up , he must (instead of the Sunnah of the aqeeqah) slaughter a sheep - at least - as stated in the hadith: (even if it is a sheep).
Then, a feast is held for the female who was sacrificed with one sheep, so that she learns about it, understands it, eats from it and rejoices over it. The one who is obligated is the male, whom the objectors claim is the preferred one in Islam. The extra sheep is obligatory on his father, not on the female.
The difference is clear, and it is clear to anyone who has eyes that:
1- The female is compensated by the first sheep .
2- The sheep is not obligatory on her father, but on the one who is seen as the preferred one
. 3- The female eats from her sheep, and the male did not understand anything about his sheep.

The wisdom behind women being equal to men in some rulings



and not others. As for his statement: “And He made men and women equal in physical acts of worship and the prescribed punishments, and made her half of him in blood money, testimony, inheritance, and ‘aqeeqah,” this is also from the perfection, wisdom, and gentleness of His law. For the benefit of physical acts of worship and the benefit of punishments are shared by men and women, and the need of one of the two groups for them is like the need of the other group. It is not appropriate to separate them. Yes, she separated them in the most appropriate places for separation, which is Friday and congregational prayers. He made their obligation specific to men and not women, because they are not among those who are prominent and mix with men. Likewise, it differentiated between them in the worship of jihad, which women are not qualified for, and it made them equal in the obligation of Hajj, because both types need its benefit, and in the obligation of zakat, fasting, and purification. As for testimony, the woman was made to have half of the man’s share in it. For His wisdom, the Almighty, the Wise, referred to it in His Book, which is that women are weak in mind and have little control over what they memorize. And Allah has given men superiority over women in terms of intellect, understanding, memorization, and discernment. A woman does not take the place of a man in this matter, and preventing the acceptance of her testimony altogether would lead to the loss of many rights and the suspension of them. So one of the best matters and the most consistent with reason was to add to it in accepting the testimony its counterpart to remind her if she forgets, so the testimony of two women would take the place of the testimony of a man, and it would occur from Knowledge or the overwhelming suspicion of their testimony is what is due to the testimony of one man. As for the blood money, since the woman is less than the man, and the man is more beneficial than her, and he fills what the woman cannot fill of religious positions, governorships, guarding the borders, jihad, developing the land, and doing the crafts without which the interests of the world are not fulfilled. With it and the defense of the world and religion, their value was not equal, which is the blood money; for the blood money of a free man is the same as the value of a slave and other wealth, so the wisdom of the Lawgiver required that he make its value half of his value due to the difference between them.


If it is said: But you have broken this and made their blood money equal in what is less than a third.
It was said: There is no doubt that the Sunnah came with that, as Al-Nasa’i narrated from the hadith of Amr ibn Shu’ayb on the authority of his father on the authority of his grandfather, who said: The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: “The intellect of a woman is like the intellect of a man until it reaches one-third of her blood money.”

Saeed bin Al-Musayyib said: This is from the Sunnah, even though Abu Hanifa, Al-Shafi’i, Al-Layth, Al-Thawri and a group disagreed with it. They said: It is half in the case of little or much, but the Sunnah is better. The difference in what is less than a third and what is more than that is that what is less than that is little, so the woman’s calamity in it is compensated by her being equal to the man. Therefore, the male and female fetuses are equal in blood money due to the smallness of their blood money, which is the ghurrah.


So what is less than a third is given the status of the fetus. As for inheritance, the wisdom of preference is clear; the male is more in need of money than the female, because men are in charge of women, and the male is more beneficial to the deceased during his life than the female. And Allah, the Most High, has indicated this by saying, after He imposed the obligations and differentiated between their amounts, {Your fathers and your sons - you know not which of them is nearer to you in benefit} [An-Nisa’: 11].
And if the male is more beneficial than the female and more needy, then he is more deserving of preference.


So if it is said: Then this is refuted by the mother’s child. It was said: Rather, the expulsion of this equality between the mother’s children, male and female, is because they only inherit by mere kinship. The kinship by which they inherit is female kinship only, and they are equal in it. So there is no meaning to preferring their male over their female, unlike the kinship of the father.

As for the Aqeeqah, the matter of preference in it is dependent on the honor of the male, and what Allah has distinguished him with over the female. And since the blessing of it upon the parent is more complete, and the joy and happiness with it are more perfect, the gratitude for it is greater. For the more the blessing increases, the more gratitude for it is greater, and Allah knows best.

Source: From the books of Ibn al-Qayyim, I’lam al-Muwaqqi’in ‘an Rabb al-‘Alamin – Volume Two