Rituals
Aqiqah
Lifecycle Rituals
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Aqiqah is the Islamic rite marking the birth of a child, performed on or around the seventh day of life. It includes the sacrifice of an animal, traditionally two sheep or goats for a boy and one for a girl, the shaving of the infant's head with an equivalent weight in silver given as charity, and the naming of the child. Its meat is distributed to family, the poor and neighbours, in a manner recalling other Islamic sacrificial charity.
Facts
Practice
Who Performs ItHouseholders, those living in the world 3 No ordained clergy is required; responsibility for the sacrifice and its arrangements rests with the child's father or guardian, who may perform the slaughter himself or have it carried out on the family's behalf, unlike Islamic rites that call for a trained officiant. Practitioner DetailSourced to the subject's own accountArranged by the child's parents or guardians, who commission the sacrifice and typically host the distribution of its meat 1 FrequencyOnce, or at a turning point in a life 3 Performed once per child, ideally on the seventh day after birth, though jurists differ on whether it may instead be held on the fourteenth or twenty first day, or at any later point if the seventh day is missed. Status
Current StatusWidely practiced across the Muslim world today, treated by most schools of Islamic law as strongly recommended rather than obligatory 3 Meaning
Literal MeaningArabic aqiqah, literally the hair of a newborn, extended to name the rite of shaving that hair and offering an animal sacrifice on the infant's behalf soon after birth. 3 Origins
Place of OriginSourced to the subject's own accountAqiqah traces to pre-Islamic Arabian custom, retained by the Prophet Muhammad in seventh century Hejaz but reformed in its meaning: hadith accounts have him redirecting a rite earlier associated with warding off harm to the child toward simple thanksgiving and charitable distribution of its meat. 2 Historical OriginSourced to the subject's own accountRooted in hadith attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and recorded in the major Sunni hadith collections, which describe the animal sacrifice, the shaving of the infant's hair and the naming as the Prophet's own practice for his grandsons Hasan and Husayn. 1 Attributions
TraditionSourced to the subject's own account PurposeSourced to the subject's own accountGives thanks for the birth of a child and provides for the needy through the sacrifice's distributed meat, paired in the same hadith tradition with the shaving of the infant's hair and a charitable gift of its weight in silver 2 Use
OccasionSourced to the subject's own accountThe seventh day after a child's birth, though it may be performed later if circumstances require 2 Attestation
Earliest AttestationSourced to the subject's own accountRecorded among the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad collected in the ninth century Hadith compilations Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, which specify the animal counts by the sex of the child 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
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